Living In Limbo
by JillyW
Summary: When a job goes fatally wrong, can Jesse find a way to live with the consequences? COMPLETE!
1. One

Notes: Set towards the end of season 2, because I started writing it way back before season 3 (which I haven't seen anyway as Sky TV in the UK has so far declined to show it!) had been aired. Unfortunately RL has intervened somewhat since then, hence the length of time it's taken me to finish it! 

Thanks as always to Chya, and to Jennie as well, for their enthusiastic encouragement - couldn't do it without you, guys!

Disclaimers: Sadly, none of the Mutant X team belong to me. I've just borrowed them briefly from their owners and promise to put them back exactly (well, almost... particularly in Jesse's case!) as I found them. 

The lyrics are from 'You Don't Know Me At All' by Don Henley, and I hope he won't mind me using them. 

No profit is being made from these stories and I don't have anything worth suing for...

  
**LIVING IN LIMBO  
By JillyW**

**One**

_"I woke up this morning with an attitude  
Looked at the headline, put me in a real bad mood..."_

  
Daylight, creeping furtively through hastily pulled curtains and filtering behind closed eyelids, drew him slowly and reluctantly from a deep and dreamless sleep, and for long delicious moments he lay cocooned in that pre-waking warmth where the world is a distant unthreatening murmur and reality holds no sway. But way too soon his peace was disturbed by the sudden realisation that the existence of daylight had to mean he wasn't at home. And that opened the floodgates for it all to come rushing back, accompanied by the familiar sick feeling in the pit of his stomach - the one he got when things went horribly wrong and he had no idea how to fix them again.

With a despairing moan, he tugged the bedclothes up over his head to blot out the light, but that did nothing to dispel the sense of foreboding that was nagging at his mind and he knew that he was unlikely to find refuge in sleep again, at least for a while. He pushed himself upright with a sigh, rubbing both hands up over the two-day stubble and back through unkempt hair as he looked with jaundiced eyes round the shabbily appointed room in the cheap motel, the first bolt-hole he'd found after his abrupt flight from the now cloying atmosphere of the one place he'd always felt secure. 

The plastic-veneered furniture was chipped, the carpet worn in patches and marred by cigarette burns, and the threadbare bedding held a faintly musty smell - all of it a far cry from the comfort and cleanliness he was used to. For a brief moment a swell of homesickness threatened to wash away his resolve, but he forced it back behind the dam he was building to contain all that he'd been so it couldn't dilute what he needed to become. This had been his choice, his decision to make, hadn't it? And after all, wasn't this really about all he deserved?

'No, not going there,' his new found inner strength said firmly, and in order to comply with it he shrugged the covers aside and padded in his shorts across to the ancient-looking TV sitting in splendid isolation on a rickety table by the door, seeking distraction. Switching it on, he picked up the remote control and started flicking desultorily through the channels as he walked the few steps back to the bed, the preponderance of cartoons and mindless chat shows telling him he'd slept late but at least not demanding any real thought from him, for which he was grateful. He'd been doing far too much thinking the past few days and he had no desire to re-visit the soul-searching and heartache it had involved.

Dropping back onto the bed again, he caught sight of the silver ring lying on the nightstand and had to quash the traitorous surge of longing it evoked - longing for someone to know where he was, longing for the sound of a familiar voice. That wasn't an option, though, not now. They'd made it that way, made it impossible for him to stay by their obvious lack of understanding. Because, even though it had been their insistence that he had to move on that had driven him to find some way to live with what had happened, something he could do to stop the hurting, to make everything all right again, they didn't like the results.

So they just kept niggling, chafing away at his sense of purpose, refusing to accept that this was the only possible solution for him. The new him. The one that would absolutely never again care about anyone. Except himself. Because caring hurt. Caring gave others power over you. Caring made you weak. And besides, if he didn't look out for himself, no one else would. Would they? 

Dangerously close to allowing the well of self pity that was opening up in front of him to suck him in, his attention was suddenly caught by the voice of a news reporter on the local station he'd somehow ended up with. Her words jabbed at him with such precision it took his breath away, even as the anger that now lurked so close to the surface screamed out at the unfairness of it all. How could he put it behind him if everyone else kept scratching away at it, even here, even having removed himself from the source of the most obvious and constant reminders. But that wasn't sufficient to stop the barbs driving home, splintering the fragile barriers surrounding the memories he wanted so desperately to forget and sending him spiralling back into the horror again...

*

_The heat of battle, punctuated by the grunts of effort, the thuds of impact, the occasional sizzle of one of Brennan's tesla coils... Shalimar snarling her frustration as a new wave of bad guys step up to take the place of those they've already disposed of. Blood rushing in his ears as he meets and counters the blows being thrown his way by his current opponent, savouring the physicality of the confrontation. A jarring block, a grazing fist, spinning to add power to a scything foot, and another one bites the dust._

_Flicking a glance around the broad alley backing the crumbling tenement building to see Emma positioned in front of the cowering scientists they'd come to take to safety, the last line of defence, ready to bowl out anyone who got past her team-mates with her mental stun grenades. He catches a warning in her eyes that sends his focus forward again, ducking the iron bar singing his way and turning inside the swinging arm to drive an elbow into the unprotected stomach, before using his full weight to slam the man against the red brickwork and groundwards._

_From opposite diagonals ahead Brennan and Shalimar converge, driving their adversaries in his direction in a flurry of kicks and punches, and he seizes the opportunity to finish this quickly, exhaling to phase the wall and beckon them towards him. He waits, subconsciously counting the seconds, watching as they dispatch the two men into its unforgiving embrace before he shuts it down, making it child's play for them to deliver the final blows that end the confrontation._

_They stop to survey the carnage, sharing grim smiles of congratulation as Emma encourages their charges from their self-defensive huddle, moving protectively around them and escorting them away from the scene before any more danger can threaten._

_But then the satisfaction at a job well done is suddenly interrupted by the awareness of a woman's voice inside the building, raised in anguish, calling out, screaming the name of someone who wasn't answering. He turns towards the sound, the wall behind him, his heart leaping to lodge in his throat at the sight of the small limp hand that protrudes from the solid brick. _

_With a wordless moan he rushes to phase the wall again, using his free arm to catch the slight form that sags from within its now fluid captivity and lower it to the cold ground. Stunned into immobility, he can only kneel there staring in horror at the blue-tinged lips, the dark lashes resting on the alabaster skin, the fragile chest resisting all Shalimar and Brennan's efforts to induce breathing and a heartbeat... _

_Firm hands tug at him, haul him to his feet and he shakes himself awake to the fact that the alleyway, previously void of any life beyond that pertaining to their business, is suddenly full of noise, querying shouts raining down on them from the windows above as a woman - *the* woman if her tormented cries are anything to go by - rushes past them to cradle the unmoving child, begging her to wake up, pleading for someone to help her. But it's too late._

_The look of despair and desolation that accompany her appeals for an explanation, for some reason she can grasp for her daughter to be lying here instead of playing safely in their home the other side of the wall only compound the sick realisation that, in his desire to bring things to a speedy conclusion, he'd given no thought to what might lie beyond his chosen medium, no consideration to the innocent lives he might be endangering. _

_One voice rises above the others, accusing, condemning, placing blame firmly where it belongs, and the others take up the cry, the noise bouncing round the enclosed space. As his companions pull him quickly away he looks back, his eyes caught and held by the pure hatred in the dark gaze that follows him, promising eternal damnation for what he's done..._

*

Taking a shuddering breath, Jesse struggled to break the spell and blank out the images playing before his unseeing eyes, pushing himself to his feet to stagger unsteadily to the cupboard-sized bathroom. He splashed cold water into the basin and used it to rinse the clammy sweat from face and hands, raising his gaze reluctantly to the fly-blown mirror on the wall ahead. 

Behind him, the reporter's voice droned on, reiterating the police's lack of success in finding those responsible for the mysterious suffocation of 5-year-old Daisy Walker ten days previously. But he knew where the blame lay - with the man looking back at him, storm-grey eyes sombre within their encircling bruise-like shadows, guilt and pain surfacing briefly from their swirling depths before he blinked them away.

He took another deep breath, pleased to feel the churning sensation in his gut subside as he took control again. That man wasn't him - not any more. OK, so maybe he had been the cause, but he couldn't allow that to change things, to bring about a return of the emotional baggage that he'd worked so hard to rid himself of. These things happened, didn't they? And would probably happen again - life was like that, so everyone kept telling him. But next time he'd be ready.

Next time...

With an inward sigh he turned to reach for the shower controls, spinning them to full to squeeze as much pressure out of the feebly flowing water as he could. No point sitting around here feeling sorry for himself, not if he wanted to really prove that he was right and they were wrong. Not that it was that black and white, not really. It was more that they were all just too... self-centred, too sure of their own opinions, thinking they knew what he needed better than he did himself. And hypocritical too, expecting him to accede to their urging while at the same time finding their own peace doing exactly the opposite of what they were telling him. Even Shalimar - and that had been the toughest to take. He'd hoped - no, expected, that she would understand, would support him in whatever choices he made for himself. But it seemed the time for that had passed.

And, as he stripped off and stepped into the shower, he told himself firmly that it was OK, that in his new world it simply didn't matter what anyone else thought, ignoring the small voice that cried out for things to be as they'd always been again...

****  



	2. Two

**Two **

"What? What do you mean he's gone? Gone where?" Shalimar could hear her voice rising in harmony with her anxiety levels as she faced Adam over the work surface in his lab. She'd come in here full of the self-righteous indignation that had been festering overnight, ready to sound off at him about Jesse, his stubbornness and his current - to her - inexplicable behaviour, to demand their mentor do something to make it right again. But the older man's words slammed her to a mental halt, leaving her floundering as she tried to grasp their implication.

Adam sighed. "Believe me, if I knew I'd tell you. Maybe you could talk some sense into him."

She laughed shortly and glanced away. "I doubt it - not after yesterday..."

He frowned at that but she didn't seem to notice, her own brow furrowing as she asked more of the expected questions; when, how, where - again, though he'd already told her he didn't know. But he was more than willing to share what he did. "According to the security logs he left late last night, after midnight. Took the Ducati." He punched some keys on the console he'd been working at and turned the monitor so she could see. "Looked like he was in a hurry - and planning to be away a while."

Shalimar felt her concern crank up a few more notches, her stomach knotting painfully at the sight of Jesse, pale face haggard but determined in the subdued lighting of Sanctuary's garage, moving purposefully towards the parked motorbikes with a full backpack slung over one shoulder. She watched him lift a helmet off the shelf and pull it on before swinging a denim-clad leg over the nearest machine and gunning it into life. For one long moment she thought he was just going to ride away but, as he waited for the outer doors to open he turned his head to stare directly up at the security camera, his expression hidden by the tinted Perspex of his visor. And then he was gone, the clang of the exit closing behind him jolting her out of her transfixion. 

Suddenly desperate for some outlet for her feelings, she rounded on Adam again, dark eyes flashing dangerously as the sentences tumbled over themselves to escape. "Why didn't we hear him? Why didn't the alarm go off? And why didn't you wake me when you found out? How could you let me sleep and not tell me? Tell us? What have you been doing about it, about finding him? We should be out there looking for him, trying to..." She ran out of breath, finally giving him the chance to speak.

"Look where?" he said, trying to keep his tone reasonable despite his own unease. "He's turned off his com-link and disabled the locator on the bike. This is Jesse we're talking about, remember? He knows Sanctuary's security systems almost as well as I do, and he's expert enough at finding people to know how to stay invisible himself. If he doesn't want to be found, there's not a lot we can do about it."

"Better," she whispered, and he frowned again, raising a questioning eyebrow to which she offered a small wry smile in response. "Sanctuary's systems? He was so pissed at not being able to find a way in himself when Ashlocke was holding you here, he spent every night for the next week digging out the specs from wherever you hid them and making sure he wouldn't be caught out again." She saw Adam's expression tighten a little and, misunderstanding, sought to reassure him. "It's OK - I'm sure he didn't find all your secrets. But getting in and out of here undetected now would be child's play for him." She paused, then continued thoughtfully, "Which means..."

"He wanted us to know what he'd done, but not until it was too late to stop him," Adam finished for her.

They were both silent for a moment, considering that. 

"But he shouldn't be out there alone!" Shalimar's anxiety for the man she considered the little brother she'd never had was not to be pushed aside for long. "Not now, not after what happened. Not when he's acting so weird..." She tailed off, eyes suddenly distant, and Adam was struck by the sudden realisation that, for all her questions about Jesse's departure, the feral had never asked what reasons he could have for choosing to leave - which started him wondering again what had happened between them the previous day.

Before he could ask, though, she was off and running again. "We should have been able to do something more to help him, you know? Back at the start. Found a way for him to accept it as the tragic accident it was, not something he needs to beat himself up over forever. Not something that he needs to handle alone."

Adam raised an eyebrow at her. "You know Jesse as well as I do - he'll always find a way to beat himself up if he thinks he's made a mistake. And he's always preferred to work out his own solutions, usually before he even tells anyone he has a problem!" 

"This is different, though," Shalimar insisted. "We all knew there was problem. And he'd asked for help." She saw his sceptical expression and smiled a little sadly. "Well, OK, maybe not in so many words. But in his own way he was asking..." 

*

_Wild-eyed, Jesse paces the heart of Sanctuary, his hunched shoulders and the restlessly clenching and unclenching hands accentuating the obvious tension running through his lean frame. Perched anxiously on the edge of her chair, Shalimar watches him, her heart aching to see him so distraught._

_"It wasn't your fault," she says, for maybe the fiftieth time, trying to imbue her words with as much sincerity and support as she can muster so they might this time reach him. But yet again they fall on deaf ears._

_"How can you say that? How??" He rounds on her, leaning forward to bring his face close to hers, blazing eyes boring into her with such intensity that, to her horror, she finds herself flinching instinctively away from him before she can prevent it. But he seems to accept it with only the briefest flash of hurt resignation, barely halting in his tirade. "Did you see any other molecular mutants out there today? Anyone else stupidly... *criminally* arrogant enough to phase a wall without thinking about the consequences? Because I sure as hell didn't..." He points a finger, stabbing at himself viciously in staccato punctuation as he says, "I. Killed. A. Child." The finger folds back into the suddenly balled fist that thuds emphatically against his chest. "Me. I *murdered* her! And there's nothing anyone can do or say that will change that." _

_He turns abruptly away to pace some more and she has to resist the urge to go after him, hug him, find some way to console him, to take the pain away. But his wounds are too fresh for that to be an option right now. And besides, the worst thing of all is that the cold hard facts say he's right. He did do it, did kill her even though it was remotely and without intent. Sometimes, though, the facts only tell one side of the story._

_She throws a helpless glance around the open space, empty but for the two of them, and wonders again where the others are, why they aren't here to add their own brands of encouragement and comfort. Adam's with the scientists, she thinks, getting a rundown on the work they'd been doing that had necessitated their flight from those who would use it for wrong. But Emma? Brennan? They seemed to drift unobtrusively away once they'd all made it back to the relative calm and security of home, leaving her to cope alone with this bundle of raw and desperate emotions their friend has become._

_Thinking about it, she realises this is probably the reason. Both of them, in their own ways, would find dealing with this level of emotional intensity too daunting a prospect. Emma would need time to build her shields to a sufficient level to prevent herself getting swamped. And Brennan just plain preferred not to have to get embroiled in this kind of thing. To be honest, she was kind of glad he wasn't there - in his current state she'd couldn't say how Jesse might react to one of the elemental's typically blunt takes on the situation. But Emma... Emma might find some way to get through to him, and Shalimar hopes she'll feel ready and able to spend time with him soon._

_The pacing brings him back past her and on impulse she reaches to grab his hand, pulling him down to join her. He resists, as she knows he will, but she gets her way and with a reluctant sigh he accedes to her urging, lowering himself stiffly to sit ramrod-straight beside her. But she can't help noticing the distance he keeps between them._

_"It really wasn't your fault," she tries again. "You weren't to know. You didn't mean to do it. It was an accident - they happen, Jess, you know that."_

_He slumps suddenly, as if the effort it's been taking to keep himself upright has become too much for him. "They shouldn't," he says sullenly. "Not like that. Not to someone that young. Not when a bit of thought could have prevented it. I wish... I wish my powers had never changed, that I'd never learned how to phase anything other than me."_

_She realises they've been going over and over the same ground, the same 'if only's for what feels like hours. "It's late - you should try and get some rest," she suggests, but he shakes his head firmly._

_"No. I can't." Averting his face, he drags the back of a hand covered by the too-long sleeve of his jumper surreptitiously across his eyes before taking a deep shuddering breath and pushing to his feet. He glances down at her, gaze still suspiciously liquid. "How can I, when every time I close my eyes I see her face? And I can't even remember her name..." A pause then, quietly, heart-breakingly, "My God, Shal, what have I done? And how am I ever going to find a way to live with it? What can I ever do to make it right?"_

_For long moments they just stare at each other, and she sees the last ray of hope die in his eyes as she struggles forlornly to find something to say that will sound anything other than an empty platitude. Then, without another word, he turns and walks away._

_She watches him go, head drooping disconsolately, and though her soul cries out to her to call him back, all she can do is whisper after him, "Daisy. Her name was Daisy."_

*

"Shalimar?" 

She shook herself, cat-like, blinking huge dark eyes up at him. "We have to find him," she said simply. "We have to."

"But..." Adam started, only to be forced to silence by her raised hand and abrupt transformation from kitten to tiger.

"No buts!" she said fiercely. "I don't want to hear them." He could see what looked disturbingly like guilt colouring her expression in the seconds before she dropped her gaze from his, but he made no comment as she turned away, throwing, "I'll get the others, get started on a search plan," back at him on her way out of the door.

****

The first day of the rest of his life - why didn't those words fill him with the expected thrill of freedom, Jesse wondered as he idly watched a group of pigeons arguing over discarded crumbs. The small municipal park he'd found himself in as he'd ambled aimlessly through town was bustling with the early lunch goers who'd been lured from their offices by the fine weather, the remains of their sandwiches providing plenty of pickings for the ever present scavengers, and he'd been unable to resist the quiet companionship they seemed to offer, however removed.

He'd managed to avoid doing much thinking so far today, immersing himself in finding somewhere for a late breakfast once he'd checked out of the motel, then enjoying the simple pleasure of walking in the sunshine without actually having anywhere to go or any nefarious business to attend to. But now he was just sitting he no longer had anything to distract him from the nagging thoughts he'd been avoiding. The ones that wanted to know what he was going to do with himself now. How he was going to survive. Where he was going to go.

Good questions. Big questions. And ones he had no simple answers to.

The only thing he was sure of was that his mutancy wasn't going to play a part in it.

A snapshot flared briefly in his head, one that tore at his heart despite the time that had passed since it had happened. 

Amanda.

Amanda talking proudly about her life, about making a living working in a record store, being amongst normal people who accepted her for herself and had no idea of the powers she could call on. 

Powers that had, in the end, been the reason for her untimely death, something that he still blamed himself for regardless of everyone's attempts to convince him otherwise. If he hadn't let her send him home, he'd have been there to protect her from her attackers. And if he'd never asked her out in the first place, his world might have by-passed her in favour of some other hapless New Mutant. Either way, she'd paid a price she'd done nothing to deserve. Just like Daisy.

Which of course was his fault too.

For a long self-indulgent moment, he allowed himself to imagine a present where Amanda was still alive, seeing as clearly as if she was standing in front of him the look of warm pleasure on her face as he told her he was putting it all behind him. No more 'showing off' his powers, no more crusading on behalf of freaks like him - just as normal a life as he could manage in the circumstances. A life with her.

But the image faded like the daydream it was, too quickly, too completely, and he was left to mourn its passing as he'd mourned hers, in a bittersweet haze of if only's that did nothing to improve his mood.

"Why?" he whispered, almost unaware he'd said the word out loud and not even sure exactly what he was asking. But the only response was the coo of the pigeons and the distant laughter of those lucky enough to have people to share it with. 

  
****

TBC  



	3. Three

**Three **

"Anything?" Emma's quiet voice slid gently into Shalimar's consciousness, interrupting her intense focus on the computer screen in front of her. Taking a deep breath she turned to face her friend, taking the opportunity to stretch out muscles starting to complain at being in one position too long.

Emma was watching her a little cautiously, but with clear concern - though whether for her or Jesse, Shalimar wasn't sure. Or maybe it was one and the same thing...

"No, not yet," she replied. "I've been running checks on hotel and motel registrations, credit card records, police reports, anything I can think of. But he's gone completely to ground." Like the wounded animal he is, she added silently.

"You knew it wouldn't be easy to find him if he's chosen to hide," the psionic said, coming to perch on a stool beside her. They'd had that very discussion earlier in the day when Shalimar had come bursting into her room demanding she join her on the Helix that instant so they could start searching for the missing Jesse. It had taken a lot of careful reasoning to talk her down from that plan, not helped by the feral's sudden realisation that Emma had actually already known he'd gone and wasn't making any overt effort to do anything about finding him. Since it seemed she'd already tried - and failed - to enlist Brennan's assistance, this further betrayal had been sufficient to send her storming away, intent on making it a solo mission. And the younger woman had been left with no option but to scurry after her if she wanted to prevent it.

But eventually, after a somewhat one-sided conversation that had continued at pace all the way through the heart of Sanctuary and on to the aircraft's hanger, the logic of what Emma was saying had sunk in. Grudgingly Shalimar had agreed there wasn't much point in flying aimlessly around looking for someone who quite probably had no desire to be located, and had all the skills needed to prevent it happening.

Since then, she'd been running through all the usual methods for seeking out a missing person, as well as a few wilder ideas of her own, while the rest of the Mutant X team seemed to be taking turns to try and distract her from it. Not that she'd been about to let that happen - she'd been at it for hours, rebuffing every attempt so far to get her to take a break. 

"It hasn't been that long, you know," Emma continued. "He hasn't even been gone a day yet. Could be he just needed some air, some time to think, and he'll be back for supper this evening like nothing's happened."

But the blonde mane shook emphatically at that. "No, not this time. He's gone, Emma. He's been building up to something like this, but none of us wanted to know about it." Dark brown eyes lifted to fix with beady intensity on her companion's face. "You could have helped him, you know. Helped him see this wasn't his fault. Helped him over it."

"No, I couldn't," Emma said firmly, shaking her own head slowly. "We've been through this before, Shal. I could have made him feel better for a little while. But it wouldn't have lasted. He needed to find his own way through this."

"Not alone," Shalimar persisted. "No-one should have to deal with something like that alone."

"But he wasn't alone, though, was he." The words held an oddly distant quality, as if their speaker's mind was somewhere else. "We were all trying to support him. Just maybe not in the way he thought he needed..."

*

_The two men prowl around each other, like big cats marking their territorial boundaries. This room isn't big enough for the both of them right now, and those sharing the space with them can only hope that one or other will tire of the sport and leave before it comes to blows. The work they're trying to do, the suspected conspiracy they're trying to uncover, is almost forgotten against the backdrop of a tortured conscience still seeking some form of release._

_"Will you just give it a rest!" Brennan snaps suddenly. "This old hair-shirt routine is getting real boring, bro." He ignores Jesse's incredulous look, and the glares being thrown his way by the other occupants of the room. "It happened, OK? Going over it again and again is not going to change that. No-one here is laying blame - the only person doing that is you. Shit happens, you know? You aren't the only one to make a mistake through ignorance - we've all done it at some time or another. But you can't let it take over your life. So why don't you give us all a break and let it go."_

_"How do you do that?" Jesse's words hammer the air between them, the accompanying expression equal parts sullen resentment and hurt disbelief._

_"Do what?"_

_"Act like nothing's happened?" The blue eyes bore into him. "How do you live with the things you've done? The memories of the people you've hurt in your oh so murky criminal past?" He laughs humourlessly as he drops back into a chair. "Oh, that's right - nothing you did back then ever really hurt anyone, did it? Well, that's OK then. But if that's the case, where the hell do you get off telling me how I should be feeling about this? It didn't happen to you - you didn't kill someone!"_

_Brennan shakes his head, not in response to the words so much as in exasperation at Jesse's dogged persistence. "Have it your way - you wanna wallow in your own misery forever, knock yourself out. Just don't expect me to join you." He flings a glance that encompasses the whole room. "I'm outta here." Then he's gone, leaving behind an atmosphere thick enough to cut with a knife._

_The silence drags on, those remaining seemingly taking shelter in their own worlds, until finally Jesse's gaze slides Emma's way. And she has to steel herself against the wave of pain and bitterness that follows. "What? No helpful advice? No spiritual guidance for the salvation of my soul?"_

_She looks at him for long seconds, eyes huge under her bangs, and he stares back. She thinks he's trying to feel if she's reading him, but is unsure whether he wants her to or not. After all, would it really be fair to share what's going on in his head with anyone, let alone a friend? Maybe part of him wants to beg her to not just share it but to take it all away, to excise the whole episode from his mind, even though she's confident it's not something he can remember seeing her do specifically. But even so, she fears that somehow he knows she can, that he's come closest to knowing - even if he doesn't know how - that she is probably the most powerful of them all now, and can most likely do almost anything she sets her mind to. _

_But he knows she won't help him, even before she blinks and shakes her head apologetically. "Nothing you don't already know in your heart, Jesse. There is a way for you to deal with this, but you have to find it for yourself. In yourself. It has to be your solution, your decision. Your choice."_

_As she watches him listening to her words she feels him pulling away from her, with a final desperate flood of emotion that batters itself to a standstill on the intractability of her mental barriers before draining away again._

_And then there's nothing._

_All she can sense from him is a kind of fuzzy numbness. Even his expression has closed in, the shutters dropping to hide everything behind a featureless wall in the split second before he lurches upright and hurries away, and she's left to wonder whether the price of his salvation will prove too costly for any of them to bear._

*

Emma slid back to the now in time to hear Shalimar say softly, "I guess we all had our own ideas about that - assuming what worked for us would for him too. But I should have remembered, he's always felt things deeper, longer than me. Than all of us, really." She paused and looked up, catching some fleeting change of expression cross the psionic's face. "Well," she amended hastily, "not you, of course. That goes without saying. Or maybe just differently than you..."

The pigtails Emma's red hair was pulled back into today made her look outwardly absurdly young, but the unfathomable eyes that gazed back seemed as old as time itself right now. It was probably only a few seconds before she made any comment but oddly it felt a lot longer, and Shalimar experienced the tiniest frisson of something that she might have identified as fear if she hadn't been looking at one of her closest friends. But the response distracted her before she could give it more thought. "Perhaps not so different. Intense emotions are something we're all prey to, to some degree or another. Jesse's just never really learned how to separate himself from them when he probably should.

"I doubt he's ever really felt he needed to."

Until now. 

Either one of them could have said it but neither did as they lapsed into silence, both lost in their own thoughts again.

"When did you last eat?"

The question took Shalimar by surprise, but her stomach chose that moment to remind her loudly it had indeed been too long. 'I hope he's all right out there,' she thought as she allowed Emma to chivvy her towards the kitchen.

  
**

The huge orange disc of the sun settled slowly into the waiting embrace of the western horizon, the jagged teeth of the distant mountains nibbling away at it even as Jesse pulled the motorbike to the side of the road and raised his helmet visor to watch. Behind him, spreading out at the foot of the hill he'd just climbed, lay the first stop on his journey to a new life. Sadly he'd realised only too quickly that it wasn't to be the last. The town, home to all those happy people he'd envied from afar, couldn't offer him anything more than fleeting refuge.

Somewhere out there, he told himself firmly, looking out over the landscape tinged red by the sun's dying rays. Somewhere there had to be a place for him, a place he could belong, be accepted as the person he knew he needed to be to survive. A place he could find peace. All he needed to do was keep moving, keep looking until he found it.

However long it took.

"Which will be forever unless you get started," he murmured reprovingly to himself as he revved the engine, before dropping the bike into gear and pulling away with a screech of rubber.

A thought occurred to him, though - wasn't it always the hero that rode off into the sunset? And instinctively he took the next side road that presented itself, turning his course away from the slow-dimming golden light towards the gathering darkness filling the valley below. A far more fitting environment in which for him to continue his search...

  
****

TBC  



	4. Four

**Four **

  
_"If you think I'm gonna catch you when you fall  
You don't know me, you don't know me at all..."_

  
The sound of male voices locked in quiet but nonetheless combative conversation diverted Shalimar from her nocturnal roaming. Faced with yet another night when sleep had refused to come peacefully, she'd finally given up the struggle and reverted to her primal nature, embracing the undemanding darkness as an opportunity to get her fragmenting thoughts in order so that she might finally get some rest. But it seemed she wasn't the only one up and about, and curiosity drew her padding to hover by the door to Adam's office.

What she heard, though, was enough to drive all thoughts of clandestine eavesdropping from her mind and send her bursting into the room. Her entrance had the desired effect - two pairs of dark brown eyes swivelled her way, widening in varying degrees of surprise. But it was only one of them in which she fancied she could also see guilt lurking and she advanced on their owner.

"What are you doing?" she demanded of Brennan, oddly pleased to see his discomfort increase a little. "I told you I'd deal with it, and I will - my way. It's between me and Jesse - it doesn't concern you!"

His face coloured slightly at that, but true to form he stood his ground. "Well, you know, I'm sorry but I think it does. It concerns all of us, and I got tired of waiting for you to see that, to come clean on what happened. Adam needs to know just how close you came out there because of Jesse. He's a liability, Shal, and I don't know that we should be trying to find him, bring him back, if things are just going to go down the same way the next time."

"Brennan," Adam warned softly, seeing the way Shalimar stiffened at the elemental's words, but the younger man was already straightening from his perch on the edge of the desk and moving past her on his way to the door.

"What? You think you can come out with something like that, and just walk away?" Hackles rising, the feral spun round to glare after him and, though there was a moment when they all thought he was going to just keep walking, he slowed and half turned to look at her again.

"Hey, last time I checked this was still the land of free speech. But I'm done anyway." He made to leave, but paused once more to say seriously, "Think about it, OK?" before he finally disappeared from sight.

"Is he right?" Adam murmured, his words halting Shalimar's instinctive move to follow and continue the debate.

"About what?" she asked bitterly, folding her arms defensively across her chest to hide clenching fists as she turned slowly back. "That it's not worth trying to find Jesse? That we should just abandon him out there because he's not behaving acceptably enough for us?"

"No, of course not." He shook his head firmly, his expression conveying his sadness she could even think that, and he watched her for a few seconds to be sure she accepted his words before he asked softly, "What happened on that last job? Between you and Jesse?"

Shalimar blinked in confusion. "You already heard it," she answered curtly, jerking her head towards the door.

Adam sat back in his chair, gaze level. "No, Brennan told me what he thought he saw. But he admitted he was pretty busy getting himself out of trouble. So I want to hear it from you." When she made no immediate response, seemingly lost in introspection, he prompted gently, "He says Jesse froze, that he's too frightened to use his powers any more, whatever the circumstances. And if that's the case I'd have to agree that he'd be a danger to himself and the rest of you on a mission."

She sighed, the exhalation apparently draining sufficient tension from her body to allow her to drop into the seat opposite him. "No, I wouldn't say he froze exactly. I think he made a choice. It just wasn't the choice I wanted or expected. This whole thing has changed him, Adam, in ways I don't think any of us really anticipated. And I hate it. I hate what it's made him become, and I hate that we didn't do enough to stop it."

She fell silent again, only looking up at Adam's persistent, "So... what happened?"

A deep breath, and...

*

_So, here they all are again, indulging in some major breaking and entering in the name of truth and justice._

_He doesn't want to be here - they can all see that, had seen it in his set expression when Adam had insisted he go along. But she'd hoped - still did - that being out on the street again, part of the team, facing a common cause, would remind him of who he was and what was important to him. Because she's been more than a little disturbed by the changes she's seen in him in the past few days._

_It had been small things at first, things she probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for the fact he'd suddenly stopped talking about ''the thing in the alley', as they euphemistically came to call it. In place of that had appeared a steely indifference, punctuated by sharp-edged comments that were similar enough to his normal teasing digs - mostly at Brennan's expense, it had to be said - to make her think twice about calling him on them. But the more she'd thought about it, the more she realised that the barbs now were real. And that was too far removed from the Jesse she knew and loved to be overlooked._

_It was like he didn't care any more, not about any of them, not about anyone - and he wasn't bothered who knew it. Yet another unacceptable state of affairs as far as she was concerned._

_She'd tried the gentle approach, offering understanding and warmth in an attempt to melt the ice she could see forming round his heart. When that failed she'd tried goading him, hoping to provoke him into an emotional outburst sufficient to break the dam she imagined holding his true feelings in check and shake him back to normal again. But nothing seemed capable of doing that. _

_In exasperation, she'd cornered him just before they'd left, demanding, "What's happened to you, Jess? How have you come to this?_

_"You have to ask?" The familiar blue eyes were wide and incredulous, soul-deep hurt clearly visible for a brief moment before he looked away. "Then there's nothing more to say."_

_And true to his word, he hasn't uttered a syllable since they left home, going silently and a touch sullenly at Brennan's direction to take care of his part of the mission - retrieving encoded records from the heavily firewalled computer systems housed here in this misleadingly run-down warehouse they've sneaked their way into - while the others run interference should the need arise. And Shalimar finds herself more than usually keen that it should, looking for some outlet for her anxiety-turned-irritation at what she sees as Jesse's increasingly perplexing conduct._

_A sudden noise reverberates tinnily from a distant part of the apparently deserted building and she takes it as an invitation, letting the others' warnings to wait and allow the opposition to come to them dissipate in her wake. Using her enhanced senses to seek out her prey, she soon finds herself locked in fierce combat, frustrations lost in the singing of blood warmed by the heat of battle, scything her way through their ranks and leaving them scattered on the dusty floor behind her._

_Another group of gun-toting thugs appears from a side door and without conscious thought she turns their way, her feral instincts taking control as she meets them head on. She's aware peripherally of the other pockets of conflict taking place, Brennan mixing blue-hot blasts with cold hard fists and flying feet, Emma despatching those who elude them both with bursts of emotion they're ill-prepared to deal with._

_Jesse's terse 'Got it,' through their com-links pre-empts his re-appearance from the back room he's been working in, pausing as he emerges to sweep the scene with empty eyes._

_"Let's get out of here!" growls Brennan, his words punctuated by grunts of effort as he takes care of remaining business. She'd like to comply, but a rapid if somewhat belated assessment of her situation only brings her to the sudden realisation that, in her enthusiasm for the fray, she's allowed her attackers to box her into a blind corner, to cut her off from the rest of her team and the way out._

_As they close in on her she looks helplessly around for an escape route. But the only obvious egress is through the thick panes of safety glass set into one wall, and they prove too resistant even for her feral strength to break._

_But there's still no need to panic because through the glass she can see Jesse hovering on the other side of the room beyond. And even at that distance she knows he's aware of her predicament, knows that in a few seconds he'll have crossed the space separating them and created a doorway for her to slip through to safety, like he's done so many times before, like he always will..._

_Except that, apart from what could have been the beginnings of an abruptly halted step forward, he doesn't move. Narrowing her focus in a way she can ill afford given the proximity of her captors she can see some kind of silent battle raging in him, and she realises with sickening clarity - even before he turns away - that this time it's different._

_Hands grab her, attempting to drag her God knows where, and although she fights back tooth and claw she knows it's little more than a delaying tactic. Her scream of impotent fury echoes around the room, almost drowning out Brennan's shouted warning from the far side of the window. He fires up a sustained lightning bolt that disintegrates the glass a split second after she's dropped down below the level of the sill, its force catapulting those of the bad guys who weren't quick enough to follow suit back into a tumbled heap against the far wall. Then she's up and running, vaulting through the still smouldering hole and sprinting for freedom with the elemental pounding alongside._

_"Son of a bitch!" she hears him cursing behind her as they burst out of the building to see the others ahead, Jesse already racing up the Helix's ramp while Emma moves more slowly behind, pausing to look back anxiously as she does so. Their welcome appearance, though, gives her permission to turn and follow him, her team mates hot on her heels._

_In seconds they're all on board, but it's not until the urgent need to get the plane airborne and out of range of small arms fire from the surviving security men has passed that there's time for reaction to set in. Bewildered hurt mutates to anger too quickly to be easily controlled, but for once she doesn't just let it loose unthinkingly, indiscriminately. Something tells her that road leads to a future she won't relish, so with an effort she contains it._

_She doesn't need Emma's telempathic abilities, though, to know Brennan's about to explode; she can feel the indignant outrage on her behalf emanating in waves from him. But she's never needed him to fight her battles for her and this is no different. She speaks his name quietly, shaking her head in mute warning when he glances back at her from his seat next to Jesse, and though she can see from his raised eyebrows he doesn't understand he does grudgingly subside into simmering silence._

_It won't last, she knows that. And she's not sure she wants it to, or how long she's going to be able to restrain her own aggrieved rage before it demands an outlet. She just knows that now is not the time, not with so many distractions and certainly not with the others listening in._

_This has become too personal._

*

But even later, back at Sanctuary, she hadn't trusted herself to talk to Jesse, frightened that she'd lash out, do something she might regret in her anger and deep sense of betrayal. Now, though, she realised that she'd been so mad at him she'd stopped asking herself why. Why he would behave like that. Why, of all people, he would abandon her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Adam asked softly. "When you got back? Or if not then, when you found out he'd left?"

She shrugged. "I was going to. But it didn't seem important when it came down to it. Not when he'd already gone. And anyway, like I said, it was between him and me."

"Not if it affects the team - Brennan was right about that."

"I don't give a damn about the team, Adam!" She thumped a fist down on the desk in emphasis as she came smoothly to her feet, and started to pace back and forward. "Just Jesse. What can he have been going through, that would make him choose to turn his back on someone in trouble? On me? He's always cared more about helping others than himself - it's what brought him to Mutant X in the first place."

"As you said, he's obviously made some new choices."

Stopping in front of him, she leant in to pin him with a steely look. "Yes, and you know what? That's our fault. We all told him he should let it go, find a way to get over it. Well, if this is how he's decided to do it, I'd rather he went on grieving forever. At least that way he'd be someone I recognise, because right now I have no idea who he is!"

Adam nodded. "Right. So what we need to do is find him, get him to come back here so we can help him work it through properly."

"Oh, so *now* you want to help him. Now when it could be too late! Why weren't you there for him before, when it mattered, instead of locking yourself away with those damn scientists? You know he's always looked to you for guidance, sought your approval. You could have made the difference for him."

He sighed, shifting a little uncomfortably under the intensity of her stare. "What do you want me to say? I misread the situation - misread him. I thought that you, the ones who were with him when it happened, would be able to help him better than me. I didn't realise the whole incident would affect him so badly, that he'd find it so hard to come to terms with, otherwise of course I'd have got more involved, done more to get to the root of the problem."

"But he came to you, I know he did," she protested. "Couldn't you see how he was hurting?"

"I could see he was struggling with what he'd been through, yes. But he didn't seem to be asking for my advice. I thought he was just getting things off his chest, using me as a sounding board while he worked it all out for himself - he's always been so tenacious when it comes to trying to understand how and why things happen, good and bad. So determined to find his own answers. This didn't appear to be any different."

"Well, it was. So way more different, and if you'd been paying attention to us like you should have, instead of that stupid isotope project, you'd have known this wasn't something he was going get through on his own." 

The accusation stung, for all that it was mostly true, and Adam was pushed to retaliate. "Why? You didn't. You've already said you all just told him to get over it."

Shalimar's eyes flashed dangerously. "But we were too close to it! We saw it happen, needed to find our own ways of dealing with it too. You don't forget something like that in a hurry. But you could have brought some objectivity to it all, helped put it into perspective."

Adam sighed and looked up at her sadly. "OK. I admit I was at fault. But what's done is done, and it doesn't change the fact that Jesse's actions, whatever his reasons, just demonstrate how far he's gone down this new path of his. And we may have to accept that we're never going to get him back."

"No!!" Her response was immediate and vehement. "I can't believe you'd be prepared to let him go - because I won't. Whatever Brennan wants us to think, Jesse is still part of this team, and I'm damn well going to make sure he stays that way!"

And with that she was gone, leaving Adam to mull over her words in pensive solitude.

  
****

  
Shooting bolt upright into the disorienting and claustrophobic darkness of another cheap motel room, the fading echoes of his own wordless cries still ringing in his ears, Jesse gulped down ragged breaths as he scrabbled for the light switch. Harsh brightness from the single unshaded bulb drove away the shadows but couldn't do anything to diminish the images from his nightmare running roughshod through his head.

A familiar scenario - in fact, the very thing he'd replayed over and over again in his mind during those long days and nights right after it happened, as if that would somehow change the outcome. It never did. At least, not during his waking hours.

But it seemed that now, in his dreams, things really were turning out differently. Only the end result was equally as horrifying as the original. 

It had all begun the same; the same alley, the same cowering scientists, the same thugs. The same sense of satisfaction dissolving to horror at the sight of the hand dangling limply from the confines of the wall. But this time, when he phased the bricks again, it was Shalimar who fell into his waiting arms, Shalimar who lay blue-lipped and unmoving on the ground. And when he looked around desperately for someone to help him, someone who could bring her back to life again, all he'd seen was Daisy standing staring at him, accusing him, condemning him...

With a groan he drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, letting his head droop onto their support as he rocked miserably backwards and forwards, willing his heart to stop hammering in his chest. This couldn't be happening - not when he'd promised himself it was over and done, that he was never going to think about it again. 

But it looked like promises weren't going to be enough, and right at that moment he didn't know if he had the strength to find a better way. One thing was for certain, though - sleep was pretty much off the agenda until he did.

With a sigh he unfolded himself and reached for the TV remote. It was going to be a long night. 

  
****

TBC  



	5. Five

Many thanks to my small but select group of reviewers for your comments - you're all very kind :-) And Raquelle, thanks for pointing out the Anonymous thing - all these months and I never realised that tickbox was there! I'm open to all now... *grin*

****

**Five **

_"If you think I'm gonna get down and crawl  
You don't know me, you don't know me at all..."_

  
The sound of the door slamming behind one very pissed off Shalimar - right after she'd torn him off a strip for ratting Jesse out to Adam - echoed cannon-like round Brennan's room, and he stared blankly at it while he willed himself not to go after her, to argue his case until she accepted that he at least had good reasons for thinking the action necessary. But he knew that given the mood she was in right now it was likely to end in a stand up fight, and that wasn't going to help anyone.

It seemed like she was making a habit of noisy exits these days - she'd done exactly the same thing just a few days earlier after she'd burst in on him during his morning workout and, glaring him into putting the weights down, blurted out the news of Jesse's departure. But whatever reaction she'd been expecting it obviously hadn't been his shrug and casual, "So?"

His apparent failure to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, even once she'd clarified - in no uncertain terms - her concerns regarding Jesse's emotional and mental state, and why that made his immediate location and return to Sanctuary imperative, had only served to turn her initial open-mouthed shock to simmering rage. And taking the time to towel off and pull on a sweatshirt while he decided on the best way to explain his point of view to her hadn't improved things one bit. 

He could still vividly recall her spluttering reaction to what he'd seen as the most fundamental of questions, given the circumstances. "How do you know he wants our help?"

"What?!!" she'd exploded, but he'd lifted a finger to silence her.

"No, listen a moment. You think he's in trouble, I know that. And OK, I'd agree he's got some pretty tough stuff he needs to deal with. But he's a big boy now, Shal, big enough to make his own decisions. And I gotta say, I'm glad he's finally done something about it instead of hanging around here like a wet week. Could be he just needs to be left alone for a while to do whatever he's doing, rather than having us on his back."

And that had seemed to slam her to a halt, as if the possibility that Jesse's departure might have been anything other than the result of total desperation on his part hadn't occurred to her. Not that she'd liked being forced to consider it, but it hadn't taken her long to reach her own conclusion - and no prizes for guessing which way she'd gone. "No," she'd said stubbornly. "We drove him away. And we need to find him so we can make it up to him."

His pointing out to her that the last time he'd looked it had seemed that Jesse had been firmly in that particular driving seat hadn't gone down too well either - but it had been more his continued insistence that if she didn't tell Adam what had happened in the warehouse he would that had turned her anger from red hot to ice cold. And he wasn't sure which version unnerved him most.

"None of your business," she'd warned, with more than the hint of a snarl. "I'll deal with it myself, in my own way, my own time. But *after* we've found Jesse!" 

Any thoughts he might have had of getting to see the irrationality of her position were cut short by her frustrated assertion that if he wouldn't help her, she'd go and find someone who would. Which she'd done, leaving as explosively as she'd arrived, pulling the door shut behind her with sufficient force to practically shake the fixtures and fittings from the adjacent wall. And, he thought with grim humour as he eyed the floor-scattered magazines spilled from the bookcase by the force of this recent departure, she hadn't lost her touch any between then and now. Sighing, he turned and threw himself full length on the bed, rolling onto his back and folding his arms under his head as he continued to sift through recent events in his mind.

Was he wrong? He didn't think so, but equally he didn't like the way this thing was driving a wedge between him and Shalimar, leaving them heading inexorably for opposite ends of the spectrum with Jesse's phantom presence sitting slap-bang in the middle.

Maybe he needed to re-consider...

But memories of the terrible emotion-laden atmosphere that had permeated the place those first few days did nothing to encourage a change of perspective. And he knew inherently he wouldn't be reacting any differently if the situation repeated itself.

Not that he was as completely insensitive to Jesse's position as he knew Shalimar thought right now. He'd sympathised, really he had. To begin with, anyway. He could honestly say he wouldn't wish something like that on anyone, especially someone he still saw as essentially naïve and unworldly as Jesse, and he'd certainly been affected by it himself - hell, who wouldn't be? But it wasn't in his nature to hang on to the baggage of the past - not unless the past came back at a later date to bite him, as it had done on more than one occasion. Plenty of time to deal with it then, though, if it happened - what's done is done, no point crying over spilt milk, and all those other old adages... 

But Jesse... well, that last job had proved that he not only couldn't let it go, but had allowed it to take him over to the point he'd endangered one of their own, and that was completely beyond Brennan's comprehension. And he'd wasted no time telling him so, once the data was safely delivered to Adam and the mission was officially over. Not that it seemed to have done much good. 

Or maybe it had already been too late...

*

_"What the hell do you think you were playing at out there?" Brennan's heated tones echo through Sanctuary's silent corridors as he chases after the resolutely unheeding Jesse, finally catching him as he disappears into his room and shuts the door behind him. It crashes open again violently, though, and he turns to face the other man, expression closed and impassive. "You left her out to dry, man!" Brennan almost yells, waving an angry hand back the way he'd come to indicate the subject of his outburst._

_"Hardly," Jesse counters, standing his ground. "She's all grown up now, in case you hadn't noticed. She really doesn't need babysitting any more - she's more than capable of taking care of herself."_

_Brennan, though, is not about to be put off. "But there were too many of them, even for her. They'd got her backed into a corner - I know you saw that. She needed a way out and you just walked out on her."_

_The younger man shakes his head in what seems to be irritation, which only serves to enrage the other further. But he refuses to be cowed by it. "Now you see, that's where you're wrong. She got herself into that situation because she wanted to, because she can't resist the challenge - there can never be enough bad guys for her to take on. But she never stops to think it through, consider the implications before she just goes charging in. She needs to learn to take responsibility for her actions, to accept that there isn't always going to be someone to come to the rescue if she takes it too far." He folds his arms almost defiantly across his chest, watching the elemental with shadowed eyes._

_For a long moment Brennan just stares at him in something approaching shock. "Will you listen to yourself?" he finally manages to get out, shaking his head. "What's gotten into you? I thought she was important to you, closer than your own family. We may not always agree on everything, Jess, but I never thought of you as someone who'd leave a friend hanging."_

_Jesse advances on him, the look on his face sufficient to make Brennan take a half step back, moving him into the doorway. "I know *exactly* what you think of me," he says, dangerously softly, the words just carrying between them. "How you really feel about me, deep down. And you know what? I don't care. I don't need to prove myself to you - to any of you - or keep trying to be what you think I should be instead of who I am. Especially now. And if you don't like it, you know what you can do."_

_The lack of obvious emotion in his voice belies the intensity of the gaze boring darkly from his gaunt features and Brennan finds himself unaccountably unable to come up with a suitable response, the small shiver running down his spine having nothing to do with the air temperature. "Yeah, well..." he starts, but the firmly closing door forces him to back out of the room to avoid having it slam in his face._

_He glances furtively up and down the passageway to be sure no one has seen his ignominious exit. Then, cursing under his breath, he retreats to his own room to lick his wounds and brood over what course of action to take now..._

*

As he thought back, he realised he'd chosen not to consider the full implications of what Jesse had said, focussing instead on the impact the molecular's uncustomary behaviour was having on those around him, those Brennan cared about. But if he was honest with himself he knew that he'd have to admit to being unsettled by the barbed reminder of how his younger counterpart had been changing, growing over the past few months.

Brennan knew he'd been changing too. But his attempts to develop and take on what he'd seen as the inevitable next step for him - a mantle of leadership within the Mutant X team, albeit still grudgingly recognising Adam's seniority - seemed to have produced as many downsides as they had positive results. It appeared he'd been blissfully ignorant of the true nature of the burdens inherent in the role, and that had left him feeling more and more off-balance as he sought to temper his urge to be totally in control of every facet of whatever job needed doing with enough trust in his friends' expertise to allow them all the freedom to do what they did best, without his constant intervention.

That this had proved hardest - though for completely different reasons - where Shalimar and Jesse were concerned hadn't escaped him either.

With the feral he had to accept it was simply his male need to protect the object of his - albeit not as yet openly proclaimed - affections. This wasn't made easier by the fact she patently neither wanted nor needed to be sheltered from potential harm, and he was rapidly coming to the realisation that if he wanted to stay in with a chance of turning their current close friendship into anything deeper he was going to have to back off, show her he respected her abilities and let her do her thing. However hard that was.

Jesse, though - that was a tougher one to unravel. To begin with, he'd seen his young team-mate as nothing more than an over-privileged kid come to play at superheroes, and though over time he'd come to care for him like a sometimes irritating but still mostly endearing little brother, to appreciate and rely on his undoubted technical skills as well as benefiting from his physical powers in tight situations, he'd still found the smart-alec comebacks and criticisms that greeted his efforts to give direction and provide focus wearing. Not to mention more than indicative that the molecular still had some growing up to do.

That hadn't seemed to be the case more recently, though. In almost synchronistic fashion, as Brennan's confidence in himself and his capacity to make the tough decisions had faltered so Jesse's had blossomed, to the extent that he seemed to have completely stopped second-guessing himself or waiting for others to tell him what he already really knew needed doing - a far cry from the man who'd whined to him back when Gabriel Ashlocke was holed up in Sanctuary that no one, especially Adam, took him seriously. 

Brennan could recall several occasions in the recent past when Jesse's quick thinking on the fly had saved one or all of them, and that wasn't just confined to his technical know-how where the Helix was concerned. While no-one had been looking, the younger man had been quietly working away at refining his phasing abilities, practicing until he could control the extent of his own intangibility, and that of whatever person or object he chose to share it with, with a precision that had enabled him to save lives in what would have previously been impossible circumstances. Their recent encounter with an explosive-filled necklace and the senator's daughter was only one of several incidents where Brennan had good reason to be grateful for that skill.

So, Jesse had been growing more comfortable with who he was, while Brennan had conversely been struggling with who he wanted to be. And if he'd been pushed to say what the catalyst for change had been, at least in the other's case, he would have had to point to their time in Hillview Penitentiary. 

Though he was still a little fuzzy on some of what had happened while he'd been under the influence of Rigas' drugs, he knew that the molecular had gone against Adam's express orders to stay clear of him and had instead manipulated himself into a position where he had a chance of saving his friend, regardless of the risks. A friend who'd been pretty damned disparaging in his openly expressed opinions about a guy from the suburbs' ability to do what was necessary to survive inside. 

In the end, though, Jesse had not only survived but succeeded in bringing Brennan out with him too. Chalk up one to the underdog!

Something else had happened between them in there too, something that the elemental couldn't remember clearly enough to recount and that Jesse wouldn't elaborate on, beyond a couple of cryptic comments that had only served to make him feel uncomfortably like he was on the wrong side of a secret - one that had somehow left him on the back foot as far as their relationship was concerned. And he'd gotten the clear impression from those final words of their last encounter that it hadn't been forgotten. But out of it all, the younger man had emerged stronger for the experience, and had seemed able to continue building on that.

Up until a few days ago, anyway.

That was when everything had changed. Because all his hard won control over his powers, all his new-found confidence, hadn't helped him when it really mattered. Hadn't enabled him to prevent unlooked-for tragedy striking. Hadn't brought him any hope of finding peace in its wake...

And that had ultimately made everything that had gone before meaningless, taken him back to a place where that new Jesse was nothing more than wishful thinking.

Brennan wasn't sure whether to mourn that loss, as Shalimar was doing, or to just hope that what had finally emerged in its place was going to work out for the best in the long run - for all of them.

  
****

TBC


	6. Six

**Six **

_"If you think I'm gonna be there when you call,  
You don't know me, you don't know me at all..."_

  
'Need a plan here, Jess.' The words tumbled round his head in ever decreasing circles as he wandered aimlessly down a litter-scattered side street with frighteningly little idea of how he'd gotten there, and even less idea of where he was going. But for all that the statement was painfully accurate, he still didn't seem able to put it into practice. 

As was becoming the norm for him, he'd been trailing round this particular burgh for most of the day, as if waiting for someone to leap out in front of him and beg him to come work for them, come join their family - like that was ever going to happen. Problem was, he didn't really know what he wanted to do - more to the point, what he was qualified to do, now he was out of the 'saving the world' business. And that had served to confound whatever vague aspirations he'd felt for the few positions he'd seen advertised in shop windows and the like. So yes, a plan would be a good thing.

But the longer he went on drifting like this, with nothing more than passing human contact, the harder he was finding it to focus on what he needed to do. His world was contracting daily and he wasn't sure what it was going to take to make him part of a community again - even a small one like this.

Or maybe it would be better for everyone if he didn't try.

After all, he wasn't like them, all these people he'd watched enviously as they'd gone about their blissfully normal lives, oblivious to his covert scrutiny. Why did he think he going to be able to fit in?

It's not about fitting in, though, is it? Not right away anyway. Because it really doesn't matter what people think about you - remember that. All that matters is you! And if you play your cards sensibly, carefully, they'll learn to accept you without ever needing to know what you really are, without you ever having to let them close enough to find out...

Furtive movement in the growing shadows ahead distracted him from his mental tirade and with an effort he pulled his focus back to his immediate surroundings again.

A thin dishevelled man, dressed in what seemed to be multiple layers of ill-fitting clothing, lifted hollow eyes to him as he drew near the doorway he was sitting in. His grated, "Spare some change?" sent Jesse's hand reaching reflexively towards his pocket before he remembered that he barely had enough cash to keep a roof over his own head the next couple of nights, and little chance of replenishing his reserves without leaving some marker to his location. And he wasn't ready to deal with the consequences of that yet. But manners ingrained from early childhood kicked in, pushing him to at least respond with an apologetic half-smile and a shake of the head as he passed by. "No. Sorry."

The eyes glinted malevolently, the snarled, "F**k you, then," only serving to harden his resolve again. Charity began at home, right? Look after number one...

So, why did the dumb urge to help others keep sneaking up on him like that? And why did it still have to feel so wrong not to? It wasn't like he wasn't trying to keep himself to himself. Or that he didn't have enough problems of his own to concentrate on. Why should he even be thinking about helping anyone else when he couldn't even help himself?

The smallest of sounds from behind him signalled the passage of something in flight just before it hit him solidly in the back and he spun round to face the threat, inhaling on instinct as he did so. But his lungs were only half full when he remembered his new imperative - mutant powers meant death to innocents. If he needed to protect himself he'd have to do it the old fashioned way, he told himself firmly as he eyed the tin can rattling away into the gutter from where it had fallen. 

The homeless man glared balefully from his doorway, hands already lining up another missile from the garbage around him. But something in Jesse's expression must have made him think better of it, because with a few more choice curses he turned and slid into the pile of cartons just visible in the shadows behind him.

Could he possibly need any more incentive to find himself a job and a proper place to stay? But the wanting and the doing didn't always go hand in hand.

A sudden surge of claustrophobia swept through him, the sensation of the alley's towering walls closing in on him sending him hurrying for the comparative openness of the main street visible at the far end. He was keenly aware that the day was waning, making it time to move on again - moving, always moving, like he'd been ever since he'd left... home? No, he couldn't allow himself to think of it in those terms any more, even in unguarded moments like this. Wouldn't. He'd made his choice, and there was no going back.

No matter how it called out to him when he let himself remember...

*

_It's time. Sanctuary is finally silent, his bag sitting packed on the bed - a few clothes only, nothing personal, nothing to remind him of what he'd been - and the security override for the garage doors is in place, just awaiting his input code. Why then is he still here? Still hiding in his bedroom, the one place he's felt safe from their looks of silent reproach, their ill-disguised attempts to bully him into being what he could no longer be, their inability to understand. Their pity... _

_Until this evening, of course. Until Brennan's unlooked for intrusion... Which is why it's time to go._

_With a long final look round the place he's called home for much of his adult life, he reaches for his bag and turns towards the door just as a gentle tapping sounds from outside. Indecision grips him, along with the hope that if he keeps quiet, does nothing, the unwanted caller will simply go away. But a second, firmer knock makes it clear that's not going to happen. So, with a sigh, he drops the bag into the partial concealment offered by the nearest chair and moves to open the door, taking bets with himself as to who will be out there. A two horse race, he reckons, given the day's events. And at least in that he's right. _

_But he's aware of a stab of disappointment that it's not the one he'd wanted to put his money on, even though he knew the odds were against it. The one he might have looked to for the last ditch lifeline that would save him from what he was about to do, if that had still been an option for him. He says nothing, though, as he inwardly chastises himself for even entertaining the thought 'he' might come, just stares back at her until she's forced to break the silence._

_"I was passing and saw the light," she says. Yeah, right... as if! After a few seconds, when he still shows no sign of responding, she continues with, "Can I come in?" _

_He wonders what's really brought her there at that particular moment, wonders if despite the apparent calm that has descended over him since he made his decision she can sense what he's intending._

_"What do you want, Emma?" he asks flatly, seeing her gaze flit past him to alight on the obviously full backpack just visible beyond._

_"Are you planning on going somewhere?" she counters. He says nothing, though, jaw tightening as he shakes his head slightly, less in denial than out of a clear disinclination to speak. But she knows the answer anyway. "Running away isn't going to solve anything."_

_He snorts derisively. "Is that what you think I'm doing? Funny, I thought I was just taking control of my life. Just like you've all been telling me to." _

_She pulls a face. "Not by leaving. By facing up to the fact what happened was just an accident. By forgiving yourself!"_

_The time the shaking head is clearly a resounding 'No'. "You just don't get it, do you?" he says. "There's only one person who can give me permission to do that. And she's dead. So what does it matter? Besides, like you said, what's done is done. I can accept that. That's why I'm moving on."_

_There's a silence while she looks at him assessingly, obviously trying to work out his exact intent and he tries to quell his impatience. What the hell more does she want from him? Isn't he doing exactly what she told him?_

_"Moving on... where?" she asks finally._

_He shrugs. "That's not important. Just somewhere that's not here." He laughs jarringly at something he can see in her face. "You can't be surprised. Not after everything that's happened. There's nothing here for me now."_

_"No!" she protests. "You belong here - probably more than any of us. You care about what Mutant X stands for, the work we do."_

_"Maybe I did. Once. But there's only one thing I care about now - and that's what *I* need. And I know I'm not going to find it here."_

_She reaches a hand to rest gently on his forearm. "What's going on, Jesse? This isn't you." _

_Lifting glacial blue eyes to observe her distantly, guardedly, he sees her suppress a shiver at the chill he's sure she can feel emanating from him, her hand dropping away again. Not surprising, really, because inside him there's nothing but ice. "How do you know?"_

_She blinks at that. "What?"_

_"How do you know?" he repeats. "How do you know this isn't me? The real me? That the Jesse Kilmartin you thought you knew was just a temporary show?" He gives her a couple of long moments to reply, but she just looks at him strangely so he goes on. "Maybe I'm not the person you thought I was, Emma. Not who any of you thought I was. It's not like you've really had time to find out the real me. Not like you've really tried."_

_"That's not true," she protests, opening her senses in an attempt to get a clearer reading of the jumbled emotions hiding behind the static he's been giving off and which she's been skirting around for what feels like days. But to her surprise she can't find a way through it. It must show on her face because he smiles grimly at her. _

_"No, not this time. I don't want you messing around in my head now, not now I know what I need to do. You told me to find the way, Emma. The way to deal with it and move on. Well, this is it. The only way open to me. So you'd better get used to it."_

_She moves to stand close in front of him, gazing up at him earnestly. "Don't do this, Jesse. Don't shut us out. Shalimar needs you - *we* need you. And we want to help. Come back to us." And he feels the strength of her will calling out to him, the tendrils of her mind stroking his, soothing, seducing, even as she lures him ever deeper into the bottomless azure pools of her eyes._

_It would be so easy to let the barriers he's been erecting fall, let her do now what he's yearned for her to do before - take all the hurt away, make things the way they'd been. But it's too late for that now. Much too late._

_He sees her flinch as he rebuffs her insinuating senses again, more forcibly this time and, though he thinks she could still compel him to submit if she chose, instead she seems to shrink back in on herself as if accepting that there's no point, acknowledging that he's truly slipped beyond her reach. And he finally knows that it really is time to go..._

*

There'd been times late at night - too many for his new persona's liking - when he'd found himself wishing she'd tried harder to make him stay. Or that he hadn't worked so hard to keep her out. Because then she might have known where he was going, at least a general enough idea to know where to start tracking him. But he'd been so determined on this course of action, so certain he was right. So resolute that no-one would stop him.

And this was no time to go forgetting that. 

Breathing deeply, he turned towards the motel and his bike, anxious to leave these hopelessly barren surroundings behind and continue his search.

  
****

Even deep within the peaceful, quiet place she escaped to during her meditation, Emma knew she was about to be disturbed. And she knew by whom. 

Although her shields were very strong now, there was always a small chink in her armour through which she allowed herself to maintain a watching brief over those closest to her. She'd come to recognise the taste of their minds, analogising them with her favourite ice cream flavours - smooth caramel with the unexpected bite of bittersweet chocolate chips for Shalimar, the conflicting slick/rough textures of Butter Pecan for Brennan, the pure sharp simplicity of mint for Jesse, and the dark mystery of Belgian chocolate for Adam. And it was the latter taste that filled her senses right now...'

Opening her eyes to the expected sight of him hovering in her doorway, she greeted him with a small resigned smile and waved him into the room.

"Sorry," he said softly. "I didn't mean to disturb you." He lowered himself into the indicated chair as she settled herself more comfortably into a cross-legged position on the bed, surreptitiously watching the expressions flit across his face before he finally lifted his gaze to her.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Me?" She raised a delicate eyebrow in response. "I don't think I'm the one you should be worrying about."

"Maybe not," he agreed. "But you're generally the best reflection of what's going on around here. So... how are *we* doing?"

"How do you think?" Her voice was steady, giving no indication of the swell of resentment rising up through her.

He sighed. "Not so good, I'd have to say."

"I can't think what gives you that idea." There was more than a hint of unaccustomed sarcasm accompanying the angrily flashing eyes as she went on. "I mean, no-one's behaving at all out of the ordinary, are they? Let's see... When she's not on-line checking non-existent leads, Shalimar's gone back to those night-time crusades of hers, keeping the streets clean of her version of vermin. Brennan's never here either - out looking for trouble, or more likely out stalking Shal in the interests of saving her from herself, though she'd most likely kill him if she found out. She obviously blames herself for Jesse leaving, blames Brennan for pushing him, you for not helping him, me for..." A pause. "Well, she blames everyone except Jesse, even though it all really leads back to him. Unless we get some news of him soon, somewhere for her to focus her guilt, turn her hunting instincts to tracking him down and bringing him home safely, I think we might lose her to the night forever. And if she goes, you know who'll be right behind her. Then it's goodbye Mutant X." She folded her arms and stared at him. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

He shook his head helplessly, having no answer for her question. Instead he asked one of his own.

"What does she blame you for?"

The look she threw him now was completely inscrutable, but he found himself growing more uncomfortable as the seconds passed without response. He pushed on boldly though, asking, "Is it because you knew he was going?"

There was a long pause, then as soft as a breath of wind, "Yes."

He took a moment to calm himself before asking, "Then why? Why didn't you try and stop him? Or at least tell us what he was planning so we could do something about it?"

He could feel the air in the room become suddenly thick with tension as she considered her answer.

"I did try to dissuade him," she admitted eventually. "At first. But not as hard or as long as I might."

"Why?"

"Many reasons, most of which you probably wouldn't understand, wouldn't like or agree with."

"Try me," he insisted, quietly but firmly, trying not to flinch under the full force of her stare.

"OK, how about... because I could see it was what he really wanted. Because I didn't think I had the right to try and stop him if that was his choice. Because the only way I could have gotten through to him was by force and he'd already been hurt enough." Her gaze dropped along with her voice as she finished, "Because I wasn't certain it wasn't the best thing for him in the circumstances..."

Adam raised incredulous eyebrows. "You really believe that?"

She sighed, continuing to focus on her loosely folded hands. "Yes, at the time. He'd most likely've gone crazy if he'd stayed. But now? Truthfully I don't know. I've been trying to reach him, at least get some kind of sense of how he's doing. But it's like whatever choices he felt he had to make to get himself through this have shut him off from his emotions, to the extent that I can't get any feel for him at all. And I really don't like the thought of anyone being so alone, so isolated - especially someone as naturally open as Jesse." Glancing up finally, she saw him watching her with head slightly on one side, and shrugged awkwardly. "Back then it seemed like the right thing to do. I just didn't expect him to still be out there after so long. Or anticipate the effect that was going to have on everyone." 

"None of us did," he assured her, leaning forward to squeeze her arm gently, encouragingly. "And in the end, as you said, this is Jesse's choice. I guess we have to let him play it out." Rising to his feet, he smiled down at her as he turned to the door. "Get some rest, OK? But do me a favour - keep trying to connect with him? Wherever he is, however much he thinks what he's doing is for the best, he can't deny who he really is forever. Right now he's an emotional time bomb waiting to go off, and when he does - and I think it will be sooner rather than later - I'll feel better if we know about it. I'm afraid he's going to need us more than ever then."

Emma could only nod mutely to his disappearing back, and hope very much that they'd be up to the challenge.

  
****

TBC  



	7. Seven

**Seven **

  
Another day, another town. 

Standing desolately in the doorway of the spartan box that was to be his chosen bolt hole for the night, key dangling limply from his fingers, Jesse found himself struggling to remember how many places just like this he'd woken up in since he'd abandoned Sanctuary. How many roads he'd trudged in the vain hope of finding some indication this was the one, that elusive something that would tell him this was a place he could belong. But every day his prayers had gone unanswered, and his already beleaguered soul sank a little deeper into perdition.

He'd fallen into a routine that saw him arriving at the next stop on his seemingly interminable journey late in the evening, giving him a full day for his search before moving on. Darkness cloaked his coming and going but, at least to begin with, each morning seemed to dawn with a new hope that the passing hours of daylight drained mercilessly away until night came round again and there was nothing left to keep him there. As time went by, though, he was finding that regenerating hope diminishing daily.

Everywhere he looked it seemed there were reminders of what he'd done, what had brought him to this situation. Every little girl he saw laughing or playing became Daisy to his eyes. Every mother watched him with hatred and suspicion, hurrying their children past him to keep them out of his reach, safe from the harm they knew he could inflict without a second thought. 

Every encounter with the innocent and unsuspecting was becoming fraught with danger from his narrowing perspective, and that was making even the simplest interaction more and more difficult for him. Even when someone offered him the chance of companionship, however fleeting, he was increasingly unable to open up enough to accept it. Take the waitress in the coffee-shop where he'd had breakfast that morning. He'd been aware she was flirting gently with him, and in his past existence he would have enjoyed the prospect of reciprocating. But now... now that was a risk he couldn't take. And in any case, he was certain that if she knew what he was, her interest would turn to abhorrence.

He was barely aware of the fact that, for almost the first time in his life, the 'what he was' wasn't his mutancy. It was what he had now become.

A murderer.

And that knowledge wasn't something he could ever risk allowing anyone near enough to learn.

That this decision was going to force a change in his plans hadn't escaped him. Work that didn't involve close contact with others wasn't going to be easy to find, though he did have a few ideas - using his skill with computers for one. At least they didn't judge, just presented the facts. But that kind of job, without references, didn't grow on trees and in the short term he still needed to survive.

So he'd had to sell the bike, something he regretted every time he slid onto the cracked vinyl seat of the rusty Ford he'd bought to replace it. He'd loved the sense of freedom the Ducati had given him, the way it seemed able to make him forget everything except the thrill of going flat out down an empty road with nothing between him and the elements. But it was too conspicuous, marking him out as too different to the other drifters whose numbers he was inexorably joining for comfort, and that would have made it expendable even if he hadn't been desperately in need of a financial boost.

He'd been surprised at how easy it had been, both to find someone who'd buy the bike for cash, no questions asked, and for him to slip into the shady persona of someone with something dangerous to hide, someone with no desire for the transaction to become public knowledge.

Or maybe he shouldn't have been surprised about that, given it was the truth.

It had been even easier to buy the car, again without anything more than cold hard cash changing hands, and he'd been on his way in no time, distancing himself even more irrevocably from the past. Moving. Always moving.

With a sigh he closed the door and dropped key and bag onto the bed, the long hours before dawn and his next chance of finding some way to break free of the treadmill he was trapped on stretching endlessly ahead of him. The comforting weight of the brown-bagged pint of cheap rot-gut whiskey nestling in his jacket pocket nudged gently against his side and he extracted it carefully, setting it on the bedside table. Not yet, he told himself, trying to ignore its whispered promise of escape from his problems, determined to prove he had the mental strength to rise above it - at least for now...

Looking round in search of some diversion, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and hauled up short, barely recognising the man he saw there. Sparse and dream-racked sleep had left him dog-tired and the red-rimmed, sunken eyes told of every lost hour. Most mornings he lacked the energy to shave so his habitual stubble had metamorphosed into a straggly beard, though that at least went some way to disguising the gauntness going hand in hand with a body gone beyond lean through a fading interest in food, and his too long hair hung lankly over forehead and neck. All in all, not someone he'd trust with anything remotely important, and it made his heart ache to remember that once upon a time there'd been those who'd put their lives in his hands without a single qualm. 

And those memories, once released, brought with them more of those oh so painful feelings he'd been hiding from and sent his hand reaching automatically for the bottle. Not so strong after all, it seemed.

Later, as he continued his attempts to exert his authority over the whiskey rather than allowing it to take control of him - practice makes perfect, right? - he almost allowed that same weakness to ruin all his hard work. He'd so far been unable to completely discard the silver ring that was his last real link to what he used to be, instead keeping it buried deep in an inside pocket of his jacket. But even hidden away it managed to speak to him and, Frodo-like, he was driven despite himself to succumb to its lure and pull it into the light.

Staring in rapt fascination at the dull gleam of its contours as he turned it over and over in his hand, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to let it slide onto his finger where it had once belonged. To watch the intricate design reappear on its surface as it recognised and responded to his DNA. To hear the heartbreakingly familiar voices spring from its embedded circuits into his head, calling his name, pleading, begging him to respond.

But while part of him wanted desperately to answer, to take comfort from the obvious concern he could hear, and to reassure in return, the larger and increasingly dominant side that he'd been nurturing the past few weeks gave him the willpower to resist. Silently, resolutely, he pulled the ring from his finger again, cutting off the words and consigning their speakers to that other world once more.

'They'll find you now!' crowed that tiny rebellious streak that still thought he had a future in his past, but his analytical mind knew he hadn't been visible to their sensors long enough for more than a partial fix. And he'd be miles away before they managed to narrow it down sufficiently to pick up his trail.

If they even cared enough anymore to try.

That thought, coming from left field as it did, bothered him a lot more than he wanted to admit to, which resulted in a lot more showing the whiskey who was boss. But at least that meant when he finally surrendered to sleep the dreams stayed away...

  
*

The quiet metronomic beeping of a computer-generated alarm signal stood no chance against the clatter of Shalimar's boots as she raced into the central control room and skidded to a halt in front of Adam. "It *was* him, wasn't it?" she demanded. "Tell me you got a trace on his signal. Tell me we didn't lose him again!"

Brennan answered for him. "He was barely on-line a few seconds, Shal. You know it takes longer than that. But..." He raised his hand to stop the bitter recriminations lining up on her tongue to flay him and drew her gaze towards the map flickering on the big screen. "...we've at least narrowed it down to this area of West Virginia. Better than the big fat zero we had before."

Adam nodded. "Lucky I had that flag set up in the system to start the trace and alert us as soon as Jess' com-link was activated, otherwise we wouldn't even have that. He didn't exactly give us much time to pin him down."

"He'd know exactly how long we'd need," Emma chipped in softly as she joined them. "The surprise would have been if he'd let us get any closer."

"So? What are we waiting for? Let's go get him!" Shalimar turned towards the door, looking back when she didn't hear the expected sound of the others following her. "What?" she challenged, seeing Brennan and Emma share a glance with Adam, before he responded carefully.

"Don't you think it might be better to get a fresh start in the morning. By the time you get down there it'll be the middle of the night - not the best time to pick up leads, even if you did know where to begin looking."

"Yeah, it's a pretty big area, Shal," Brennan agreed, drawing a scowl his way. "I mean, there's gotta be ten, fifteen towns he could be holed up in, not to mention all the other places too small to raise a blip on the radar. We could probably do with the time to check them out a bit more, see if we can narrow it down some. And anyway, not everyone has your affinity with the night - some of us actually need some sleep to function at our best."

"That never stopped you before when someone you cared about needed help," the feral snapped. "Any of you! So I guess I'm the only one who still hasn't given up on Jesse."

A chorus of denial greeted her, but she treated it with the contempt she obviously felt it deserved. "Prove it, then! I can't leave him out there another night, not now, not when I have some place to start. Not when he's finally made contact. Can you?"

Her simmering golden-brown gaze swept over them, but her heart sank a little to see that they were unable to truly meet her eyes. There was a silence, broken finally by Brennan's sigh as he shrugged expansively.

"I guess we're going huntin', then," he said, coming to stand in front of her. "So, you got any hunches on where we go first?"

She looked up at him gratefully, choosing to ignore the fact she knew he was in all likelihood doing this more for her than for Jesse. But right then she didn't really care as long as she didn't have to spend any more wasted time finding some other outlet for her anger and frustration. "Of course!" She moved past him to the map still displayed on the screen and started randomly tapping the dark patches that represented the settlements dotted across it. "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe... So that would be... Ardington? Good a place as any, don'tcha think?"

With a dazzling smile that conveyed far more confidence than she was actually feeling she turned towards the door again, pausing to throw impatiently back at her hovering friends, "Shall we?"

She didn't wait for an answer, heading boldly in the direction of the hanger with Brennan ambling along behind. But that at least saved her seeing the look of questioning uncertainty Emma shared with Adam, and his resigned nod of agreement before she too followed them out.

  
****

TBC  



	8. Eight

**Eight **

  
"He was definitely here," Brennan reported as he re-joined his team-mates in the Helix, parked in stealth mode by a disused warehouse on the edge of town. "The desk guy at the motel recognised him from a few days ago, though from the look of the place I'd have to hope Jess was wishing he'd found somewhere else to hide out. It's a complete dive."

"And you'd know about that," Shalimar muttered, frustration getting the better of her again even though she also had to acknowledge this was good news. She'd been charging around like a bull in a china shop, Emma in tow trying her best to calm her down. Not surprisingly, that approach hadn't elicited too much in the way of positive responses from the local populace. But Brennan had, it seemed, had better luck, despite his growing unwillingness for the task.

"I hope you know what we're doing," he'd grumbled as Shalimar had chivvied him out into the chill pre-dawn air at their third stop of the night. 'Cos I definitely didn't hear him say 'come get me'. In fact, you know what? I didn't actually hear him say anything!"

"He didn't have to say the words," she'd said defiantly. "The fact he even came on-line after so long is enough. He'd only have done that if he wanted us to know he needs us."

"If it was even him... Hey," he'd gone on at her frown, "believe me, I want to know he's OK as much as you do. But you have to admit, without a voice it could have been anyone. The com-link needs Jess' DNA to go live, but that doesn't mean it was him activating it."

But neither Shalimar nor Emma had been prepared to join him in speculating further on how anyone might have acquired both the ring and the necessary DNA without their owner's collusion. Instead, the feral had become even more focused on her mission, and even more determined that everyone around her should do the same.

Most of the places they'd visited so far had been small - one long main drag with a few tree-lined side streets and clusters of clapboard houses clinging to the thin divide between civilisation and the open countryside. The mainstay of their investigations had been ubiquitous motels, or boarding houses in those places too diminutive to warrant anything more substantial, though they'd also checked out whatever eating establishments and local garages that had been open on the basis that, wherever their missing friend was heading, he'd be needing fuel - both for him and his transport.

That this was no longer the Ducati they'd spent the last few weeks keeping a virtual lookout for had been the major discovery a few stops back - one of the larger settlements, boasting a small industrial estate, the biggest array of shops and restaurants yet, and enough nooks and crannies for a man to lay low in to keep them occupied for several hours.

Standing on a street corner, taking stock of the world around them, Shalimar had alarmed her companions by suddenly yelping and taking off down the block. Hurrying after her, they were just able to see her hurl herself at a slim man in ripped jeans, battered leather jacket and full-face helmet, who was in the process of starting up a motorbike. A bike last seen disappearing with Jesse, Brennan had quickly realised, though it was equally obvious the feral's prey wasn't who she'd hoped and expected. Her body language went instantly from playful to aggressive as she dragged the man bodily off the bike and slammed him against a nearby wall while she ripped open the visor and snarled into his frightened features. By the time the others reached her, pulling her away before the altercation drew too much unwanted attention, she'd got all the information he was able to give her on where and how he'd come by the machine. 

Sadly, none of it had proved particularly helpful, beyond pointing them to an illicit-looking back street bike repair shop in yet another town where the ferret-featured proprietor had strenuously denied all knowledge of Jesse's future plans. Given that Brennan's fist had been waving threateningly under his nose at the time they'd been inclined to believe him, which had left them with no alternative but to go back to picking random place names off the map.

But now they had another sighting to add to the mix and, as the elemental was quick to point out, that gave them two points of reference to use to extrapolate where their elusive friend might have been heading next. 

"If he was there last week and here on Wednesday," Emma said thoughtfully, tapping at the map displaying on the monitor they were poring over, "he'd have to be heading south west."

"Unless he's just going round in circles, like us," Brennan muttered, earning himself a none too gentle elbow in the ribs that left him rubbing ruefully at his side as he went on. "Oh yeah, I forgot, this is Jess we're talking about - single-minded to the last. So it's straight on 'til morning, right? That would make..." He leant in to check the name attached to one of the dark blobs indicating an urban mass. "...Willston the next attraction on our little tour?" 

There was no response beyond the sound of both women returning to their seats in preparation for take off.

  
**

As afternoon drew towards evening, so Jesse was drawn back to where he'd left the car, slouching up the darkening street to the small and secluded chain-link fenced parking lot behind a row of early-closing shops. His introspective mood, intensified by another soul-destroying day, kept him from noticing that he had company until he was at the entrance - a small group of teenage boys were huddled by the wall in the far corner, and from the raised voices they weren't just enjoying a quiet clandestine smoke.

From what he could see from the quick glance he threw their way as he turned towards the parked Ford, three or four older kids were clustered aggressively round a smaller figure, jeering and goading him for some reason that he couldn't hear clearly enough to comprehend. But he understood the tone and intent of their barrage all too well, and the scars of similar situations he'd carried since childhood had him moving their way in a knee-jerk reaction before he could stop himself.

'Walk away,' he told himself firmly, bringing himself up short. 'Just kids being kids, none of your business.' But even as he forced his attention back to his car, the younger boy suddenly broke free from his tormenters with a fear-filled yell and scrambled in his direction, seemingly swept up and carried along on the scream of, "You're dead, man!" that echoed around from behind him. 

The street lights chose that moment to flicker to life, illuminating the terrified expression on the kid's face. But it also gave Jesse a clear view of the look of naked hatred twisting the features of the tallest of the remaining gang members - and worse, glinted menacingly off the blued metal of the gun he pulled from the waistband of his jeans and aimed shakily their way.

In that moment everything changed as, with a blinding flash of self-realisation, he recognised what he had to do. 

It had nothing to do with caring about those involved - the motivation was far too selfish for that. It was simply that he knew if he didn't do something to help, he'd never be able to come to terms with who he was now. And he couldn't bear the thought of hating himself even more than he already did. 

So, without allowing himself time to think about it further, he reached to grab the boy's arm as he drew alongside and swung him round into the shelter of his body, as he'd done so many times before in so many other places.

Instinct cried out to him to take a breath, to mass himself so as to protect them both. But the countering pull of the new way of 'being' he'd immersed himself in so thoroughly the past weeks demanded that he do nothing of the sort, and the two effectively cancelled each other out, leaving him without the impetus to do more than stand staring in sick fascination as the gun fired. Time slowed in that way it does in the movies when something momentous is happening, and it seemed to him he could actually see the bullet spiralling lazily through the air directly towards him, could measure its progress in long seconds rather than the instant it should take.

Right up to the moment it entered his chest with a flash of white hot agony and a spurt of crimson globules that hung in the air, only to succumb to gravity and splash groundward as time telescoped back to normal. The world grew suddenly full of loud noises and confused shadowy movements and a warm wetness seeping through the fabric of his shirt in harmony with the spreading numbness that drained the strength from his legs, sending him lurching sideways down onto the unforgiving surface of the lot. 

Bright shiny pain blossomed through him on impact, robbing him of the ability to move or even think, although somewhere distantly he knew there was still something important he needed to finish. But all he could do was lie there on the cold ground with his cheek pressed into the gravel, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Small cautious hands touched him, tugging at him, and somewhere very far off a voice asked if he was all right. With a groan he toppled over onto his back, but that did nothing to improve matters - in fact, it just made it worse. Breathing became too hard, as if his lungs were filling with liquid, his chest tightening around his increasingly shallow gasps for air that simply wouldn't come. 

As the noise surrounding him dwindled and his peripheral vision faded, he locked his gaze desperately on the frightened young face that floated in the hazy light above him.

"Forgive me," he whispered, and the world ebbed away to nothing.

  
****

TBC  



	9. Nine

Many apologies for the unintentionally lengthy delay in posting this next part - a combination of RL pressures and PC/ISP problems stopped me getting on line before I went on holiday for two weeks. Back now, though, so I hope the gap won't spoil things too much.

Thanks as always for your great feedback - it really is much appreciated...

-o-o-o-

**Nine **

"So... just how long do you expect us to go on doing this?" Unsurprisingly it was Brennan who broached the question that had probably been floating in all their minds through the last couple of abortive stops. But the response was quick and equally unsurprising.

"As long as it takes."

The elemental swung round in his seat to scowl back at the blonde sitting behind him, staring intently at whatever image she had displayed on her monitor.

"Look, Shal, I know how you feel - but this is crazy. If we were going to just stumble over him, don't you think we would have by now? We've been out here nearly 24 hours already. We need something more to go on than just sticking a pin in a map!"

"And we'll stay another 24 if needs be!" She hunched even further forward over her console, her voice dropping as she said, "He's close, I know he is."

"Oh, sure you do," Brennan scoffed irritably, swinging back to the controls again. "Now, if Emma said that I might..." But he was interrupted by what sounded like a pain-filled gasp from the third occupant of the Helix.

"Emma? What's wrong?" Shalimar asked as she reached a hand to steady the suddenly swaying psionic. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

"I... I don't know - I just got the strongest hit off Jesse, just for a second. But it's gone now."

"What? What kind of hit? How is he?"

Emma raised enormous shock-filled blue eyes, standing out brilliantly against her almost bloodless skin, and Shalimar's stomach contracted into an even tighter ball in direct proportion to the strengthening grip her friend now had on her arm. "Hurting," came the whispered response. "Hurting so much..." and the feral found herself unable to tear her gaze away.

"Adam? You there?" Brennan queried tersely, alarmed by the intensity of the two women's reaction.

"I'm here," floated out of the ether almost instantly, telling him that their mentor hadn't been far away. "Have you found him?"

"Not exactly... but Emma just sensed something from him so he can't be a million miles away."

"What kind of something?"

Brennan hesitated only briefly before replying, "The not good kind." He tried to ignore the wild look Shalimar flashed him, continuing, "Have you come up with anything?"

"There's been nothing so far that seemed worth following up on, otherwise I would have passed it on. I'll take another look, though - hold on."

As the seconds ticked by to become minutes, the tension grew in the confined space of the cockpit until it became almost a living thing, feeding greedily on the occupants and pushing them to the limits of their already stretched self-control.

"What the hell is taking him so long," Shalimar snapped suddenly. "We can't just sit here - if something's happened to Jesse we have to **find** him before it's too late."

"Here we go again," Brennan muttered under his breath, earning himself a gold-tinted glare. "I think we're all pretty much clear on that - what we're still not clear on is where to look! Not unless Emma's learned how to GPS her remote contacts."

The telempath's head jerked up, startled out of her stunned-seeming state by the sound of her name to look uncertainly from one to the other of her friends. But before anyone could say more Adam's voice boomed out of the com-system again, and they didn't need Emma's sharp intake of breath to know he had bad news.

"Brennan? What's your current location?"

"We're just outside Clarksburg. Whatcha got?"

There was a pause before the older man went on, obviously while he checked their location. "Good, you're not far. I've been monitoring the police frequencies in the general area, but this report only just came in - a shooting, over in Parkway." Another brief silence, then, "I'm not positive, but from the description I think it might be Jesse."

"No..." The word was no louder than a sigh, but carried an ocean of emotion nonetheless. Shalimar's focus snapped back to Emma's face, seeing the heartfelt anguish there and hoping beyond hope she was misreading what it meant.

It was left to Brennan again to question Adam as he started up the plane's engines. "Any indication how bad it is? Or where they've taken him?"

"Bad," was the succinct reply, followed by the name of a hospital. "Listen, I know this is hard, but we need to make sure we get to him before they can run too many tests on him. I don't want to risk them finding out about his unusual genetic make-up, asking questions. Alive or..." He broke off suddenly, but they all knew exactly what he'd been about to say. "Well, I want you to get him back here, as soon as it's possible to move him."

"How the hell do you expect us to do that? The place is gonna be crawling with doctors, nurses, cops even - they're not exactly going to hand him over, just like that."

"And anyway, don't you think hospital is the best place for him? It's got to be worth the risk if it saves his life," put in Shalimar shakily, trying to repel the gruesome images of Jesse lying unmoving in a pool of his own blood that were trying to force their way into her head.

"With his mutancy it's hard to say how this kind of traumatic injury might make him react, even to the most basic of life-saving treatments, and at least here I know what I'm looking out for. If he's still alive, it may be his only real chance for long-term survival. You're resourceful people, you'll figure some way to get to him. Just do it fast!"

That sobering thought kept them all locked in their own thoughts as Brennan put pedal to metal and took the Helix sharply skywards.

-o-

White. Nothing but white, as far as the eye could see - though that didn't seem to be very far. The white of nothingness, emptiness, non-existence - at least, that's how it appeared to Jesse. Except that he was there in the middle of it. 

Or was he? Maybe this was a dream and he wasn't really there at all. But dreams you woke up from and this didn't seem like it was ever going to end.  
  
He'd tried calling out, but no-one had answered. He'd tried to find some way out, some doorway to somewhere else, but whichever direction he searched he always seemed to be in the same place. Here. Nowhere.  
  
Time passed, he thought, but he had no idea how long. It could have been hours or even days before he realised there was someone else there with him. A small child, a little girl and somehow she was familiar though he couldn't remember from where or when. She seemed oblivious to him, though, immersed in some game or another, until he interrupted her hesitantly. "Hello?"  
  
She looked up curiously, big brown eyes surveying him without fear. "Hello," she said. "Do you want to come play with me?"  
  
When he shook his head her face fell a little, but with a small shrug she accepted his decision and immediately lost interest before his blurted, "Where am I?" brought her attention back his way.  
  
"Where do you want to be?"  
  
That surprised him because he really hadn't given any thought to what he truly wanted for what seemed like an age, only how to live with what he'd become. "Not here," was the best he could come up with.  
  
"Why **are** you here, then?" she asked, with childlike logic.

Something else he had to ponder for a while. "Because... because I was looking for something, I guess. But I think I gave up hope of ever finding it, and it just seemed easier to stop trying."  
  
She gazed earnestly at him, her expression far older than her apparent years, and he suddenly knew exactly who she was. "You've changed your mind, now that you're here." A statement, not a question, and his heart started to beat a little faster.

"Yes... now that I'm here. With you."

He held his breath, unsure what he was expecting to happen but strangely certain the next few moments held the key to his future existence - if he could just work out how to grasp this opportunity he'd been given.

And which was about to be taken away. Her eyes became distant suddenly, as if she was listening to something beyond his hearing. "They're calling me," she said with a serene smile. "It's time. I have to go now."

"Go? Go where?" he asked in confusion, the thought of being abandoned here by himself - wherever here was - making him unaccountably apprehensive. But, with a cheerful wave goodbye, she just began walking away from him, ignoring his desperate, "Wait! Don't leave me!" Mortified by the pathetic tremble in his voice, he took a deep breath to try and steady himself before he went on. "No! Please don't go, not yet. I need... I need to..." He shook his head in exasperation at his inability to get the words out, find the right way to say what he had to, even as she started to disappear into the whiteness beyond. "You shouldn't be here!" he finally managed to yell. "It was a mistake, an accident - it shouldn't have happened. This shouldn't be happening. They should be taking me, not you - it's my fault! Let me go instead."

That stopped her, if only briefly, and she turned with a girlish giggle to say, "No, silly billy. Don't you know anything? You can't go this way - you don't belong there. That's where you're meant to be." She pointed away past him, and when he glanced hurriedly back over his shoulder he was horrified to see a gathering gloom building there, like dark thunderclouds rent by the jagged fire of lightning. Well, if that was to be his fate, his punishment for his crimes, then so be it. But he couldn't go willingly, couldn't endure an eternity of damnation without knowing he'd done all he could to make his peace, and he knew even as he sought out his young companion again that he was running out of time.

From behind him somewhere he felt the encroaching blackness reaching out its tendrils to ensnare him, heard a murmur of unsettling sound that seemed to carry his name lost in its bewildering refrain. But he strove to ignore it, focusing his last burst of energy on the vanishing child as he called out, "Please... I'm sorry..."

A sharp ache started up in his chest, growing in intensity until he found it hard to breathe, but he clung on. Straining eyes and ears, he thought he saw her pause to look back just as she finally faded from view, the barely audible words, "I know," drifting his way on the growing breeze that swirled around him, lifting him up and sweeping him away. Light gave way to ominous dark, and he squeezed his eyelids shut against the overwhelming fear of what was to come, aware only of the pain and the deceptively seductive whispering voice pulling him to his doom and the disorienting sensation of tumbling endlessly, hopelessly downwards.

Until, with jolt that sent ribbons of agony rocketing out through his body to all his nerve endings, he stopped dead.

If he'd had his choice he would have just lain there, silent and still, in the hope he might go unnoticed by... well, by whoever - whatever might be around. But instead, accompanied by an uncontrollable gasp for the air his lungs seemed devoid of, his eyes flared open totally of their own accord to blink against the unexpected brightness of his surroundings.

A familiar face shimmered above him, surrounded by a golden halo - not hell then, he thought gratefully. Demons didn't wear halos, did they? And they certainly didn't smile and cry at the same time, or grip your hand like they were never going to let it go.

"Hey, you. 'Bout time you decided to join us. Was beginning to think you'd lost your way home."

He'd have liked to have answered, offered some reassurance, but talking seemed beyond him. And in any case, he wasn't completely sure if this was home - or even where home was - so it was easier to just try for an acknowledging nod.

A bad idea, apparently.

The pain flared briefly again with breath-taking results, then subsided into a welcoming numb fuzziness that wrapped around him like a blanket and carried him gently away to unknowing oblivion.

TBC


	10. Ten

**Ten **

From her vantage point, perched high in the shadows of Sanctuary's upper levels, Shalimar kept watch as Jesse completed another solitary circuit of the corridors below. She could see how much it was taking out of him, how he was pushing himself, but much as she wanted to go down there and bully him into stopping she knew how that would be received. 

"Are you sure you should be doing that?" she'd asked anxiously a couple of evenings ago when she'd gone to look in on him and found him half dressed and struggling his way awkwardly into a t-shirt. "Did Adam say you could get up?"

"I have to. I need to," he'd asserted, once he'd managed to get his head out through the neck-hole so he could see her. "It's driving me nuts just lying here - I need to start getting my life back... back to normal."

Seeing him having problems getting his arm into the sleeve, and the stifled wince at the pull on damaged muscle and flesh, she'd reached out to help him but he'd glared her away with a snapped "Don't fuss!" as he'd finally pulled the garment on properly and settled it more comfortably over the dressings still protecting his healing wound. So she'd retreated, trying not to let his rejection hurt, telling herself it was just the frustration of too slow recovery talking, that as long as he was here with them where he belonged, everything would be fine.

Of course, it was still only a comparatively short time since they'd liberated him from the hospital and brought him back to Adam's care. It had been Emma's idea to pose as Centre for Disease Control officials, citing Jesse as the potential carrier of a possibly lethal infectious threat as a way of spiriting him out from under the noses of the doctors and local law enforcement. But they'd had to wait far longer than Shalimar had thought she could bear for the medical staff to stabilise his condition enough for them to put their plan in motion. With Adam tapped into the hospital's systems, he'd been able to get first hand updates on their progress through the CCTV in ER and the operating theatre which he'd then fed on to his team. She hadn't been sure, though, whether this made things better or worse.

But they'd all known Adam had been right to send them in when they heard the doctor questioning an abnormality in Jesse's blood work. It wasn't sufficient to prevent them cross-matching the right type for the transfusion he needed so badly, but definitely something she declared herself keen to get to the bottom of once they'd gotten him through surgery.

Luckily their CDC guise had given them the perfect excuse to take not only Jesse but any blood and tissue samples taken for test purposes. Their hazmat suits and the ID's Adam had produced and sent them to print out via the Helix's on-board systems had passed muster, backed up by a healthy dose of life or death urgency that they hadn't had to work too hard to make convincing. The doctor had even made it easier for them to transport him safely by insisting they took all the necessary paraphernalia he was hooked up to, without them having to display their ignorance of matters medical.

It had still been touch and go that they'd get him back to Sanctuary and Adam in time, though - his condition had deteriorated alarmingly on the journey home, and it was testament to the older man's skill that he was even standing there now. There'd been moments in those early days when the molecular's mutant physiology had come dangerously close to breaking down in the face of the massive trauma he'd suffered, when it seemed that he had neither the physical strength nor the mental desire to fight for his own survival. But, with Shalimar and Emma almost constantly on hand to offer him moral support as well as vocal and tactile encouragement to their unconscious friend, Adam had fought for him long and hard, working his magic to overcome each set-back. And slowly Jesse had come back to them.

But even once it became clear he was out of the woods physically, she hadn't been able to rid herself of the uncertainty that had been plaguing her, the worry that once he was well enough he'd still decide he didn't want to be there any more and leave again. And though she knew rationally that she could well end up pushing him to do the very thing she wanted to prevent, she just couldn't stop herself going into full-on protective mode.

Her daily routine had started to revolve completely around him, always being there in case he needed help or entertainment, enticing him to eat or, latterly, trying to stop him doing himself more harm by getting too active before he was ready. That her behaviour had proved to be a cause for concern for each her team-mates, though for very differing reasons, had been something she'd chosen to ignore.

To begin with Jesse had seemed to welcome her presence during his sporadic periods of wakefulness, but as he'd grown stronger so had her need to know exactly what had been going through his head, both before and during his self-imposed exile. He'd shown his lack of desire to talk about it through a quiet evasion that had become more and more overt as time passed, though he had made an awkward, halting attempt to apologise for not being there for her back at the warehouse when she'd caught him in an unguarded moment newly roused from sleep. She'd done her best to assure him she understood, that there was no need for apology or explanation, but she wasn't certain he was totally convinced. And that was probably because there remained a tiny part of her that still cried out to know how he could ever have left her in danger.

She'd thought she might have gotten him to say more, but he'd clammed up in the face of her gently probing questions, and since then he'd given her no opportunities to try again. In fact, he'd made it increasingly clear he was finding her attentiveness too claustrophobic for comfort, which had forced her to back off with her curiosity unsatisfied.

But that didn't mean she couldn't still keep an eye on him, just in case - or hope that maybe Emma or Adam might have more luck getting him to open up...

-o-

He knew she was watching him. He could feel her eyes following him almost hungrily, and though he thought he could do with some company, someone to take his mind off the dull ache pervading his chest as he walked, he had to admit he was glad she was keeping her distance. As important as she'd always been to him, as much as he knew he owed her, the fact was he just didn't know how to give her what she so obviously needed, the answers she wanted to hear, and he didn't have the strength to spare right now to deal with it.

Waking up here, in the familiar hush of Sanctuary, had been a pleasant surprise - and not just because it meant he wasn't dead. It had proved they hadn't abandoned him, even though he hadn't shown them the same consideration, and that had left him feeling alternately humbly content and guiltily ashamed. But it couldn't change the truth of what he'd done or the reasons why, and although at some level he knew he needed to talk it out, exorcise his demons, as yet he hadn't been able to let himself open up enough to anyone to try.

Once Adam had cut down on the drugs that had kept him asleep, held the pain at bay, he'd had a lot of time to think. But he'd mostly forced himself not to dwell too much in his recent past, telling himself he needed time to absorb all that had happened before he rushed to any decisions about his future and focussing instead on getting fit enough to actually do something about them. All he'd really wanted from those around him was simple undemanding companionship, distraction from the physical discomfort and his mind's on-going tendency to slide into introspective brooding - and for the most part that's what they'd given him. But there'd been times, and increasingly too many for his comfort, when he could sense the feral's need to know as an almost tangible thing, and out of self-preservation he'd been driven to accede to his instinctive reaction to push her away.

Not that it was just her. Though his feelings of isolation were mostly behind him, he was still finding it hard to work his way back to a position of comfort even with those he should know best. And at times it was like he didn't know them at all. Shal's smothering, Emma's distant but constant presence, Brennan's too-friendly bonhomie during his irregular visits - no one was behaving as he expected them to, particularly given his actions, and that was as confusing as hell.

Only Adam seemed to have remained consistent - more pre-occupied with his physical condition than what was going on in his mind. But while that was reassuring to begin with, he'd begun to realise how much he missed the easygoing relationships of his early days with Mutant X, when to know Adam was to trust him, implicitly and without question. When he'd felt able to talk to him about anything and everything, to thrash out the issues that were bothering him, knowing that their mentor always had only their best interests at heart. Now it seemed they couldn't have a meaningful exchange without him wondering about ulterior motives and unwanted revelations, what dark secrets from an increasingly murky past were going to leap up and bite them next.

Lost in thought, the message his body was trying to send him about indulging in way too much exercise went unheeded until it conjured up a wave of dizziness that had him hanging on to the nearest wall with his eyes closed, praying it would pass quickly, at least enough that he'd have some chance of making it to a chair. But when he opened them again, he was surprised to see Adam standing a few yards away observing him with folded arms and a raised eyebrow, as if conjured up by his wishful musings.   
  
Mustering a glare, he took a surreptitious steadying breath and pushed himself upright again. "What?" he said, his tone and expression almost daring the man to comment. But he found the nonchalant shrug and half smile he got in response almost more confrontational than being bawled out, and that put him instantly on the defensive.  
  
"I know what I'm doing, you know. I've got this under control. You don't need to keep checking up on me."

Again, the little smile. "Oh, I wasn't. I was just passing." But he showed no sign of moving on, and there was no way Jesse was going to demonstrate how rubbery his legs had suddenly become by trying to cross the space between them and beyond to where the nearest available seat beckoned.

"So, what are you going to do, Adam? Rap my knuckles and pack me off to bed again with a glass of warm milk and a bedtime story?"

"Not if you don't want to go," Adam said mildly. "You're more than old enough to make your own decisions about that. It would perhaps be a more comfortable place to pass out than here, though."

Words of hot denial and hostile counter-claim sprang instantly to Jesse's tongue, but something in the older man's expression made him hold back - something he couldn't remember seeing there in a long time. Care and concern a plenty - that had never been in doubt, not really, even when it had appeared the reasons for them had been not entirely altruistic. But now he thought he could also see understanding, and perhaps an invitation, and that sapped the aggression from him along with the remains of his energy. With a sigh, he wobbled in the direction of the now very welcome couch, accepting the steadying hand under his elbow as he passed by and the much needed support to get him the rest of the way.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, as if neither of them knew how to start a conversation that had the potential to be deeper and more revealing than either would find comfortable. In fact, only one of them was even trying to find the right words - the other was quite happy to just be there as long as it took for him to do so.

While he waited, Adam fought the urge to cast a sideways glance Jesse's way, knowing without looking what he'd see. Too thin, too pale, too haunted and way, way too serious - he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard the infectious giggle that used to follow the successful execution of some prank or another, and he knew that he was largely to blame. Not just because he'd been too preoccupied with his own problems recently to pay enough attention to what was going on with those he'd devoted himself to protecting, though that was a major part of it. But even when he'd reluctantly had to involve them in order to get to his enemies before they got the upper hand, he'd found himself unable to give them the explanations and reassurance they needed, in his desire to protect them further. And that had created an atmosphere of mistrust and torn loyalties in which laughter had seemed to have little place.

The problem was, he didn't really see how he could change that without jeopardizing everything he'd achieved so far, a dilemma that had kept him from doing this sooner. But he knew he'd failed Jesse before by not recognising his unspoken cry for help and, if nothing else, he wanted to put that right. If he could get a laugh out of him in the process, so much the better!

All he needed was for the molecular to give him a place to begin. Which, prefaced by a deep inhalation of air, he did.

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone. That's why I left - so I wouldn't any more, couldn't..."

Adam wasn't totally sure he was only referring to the child, but it didn't really matter. What was important was to keep him talking now he'd started, so he just said softly, "I know."

"I thought, if I could get away from all this, go back to who I used to be, I could make sure it didn't happen again, make sure no one could ever be put at risk because of me." He paused, long enough to have Adam wondering if that was it, before he whispered, "And maybe find a way to put it behind me, find some peace."

More silence, until the older man broke it by asking carefully, "Did it work?"

Jesse snorted, waving his hand vaguely towards his chest. "Not exactly." He went quiet again, for a long time, and when Adam looked his way he could see the signs of some sort of internal struggle flitting across his features. Eventually he seemed to come to a decision, though. "I thought I'd died."

Adam realised Jesse had never actually asked him anything about events between the shooting and his eventual awakening, and though he'd assumed one of the others had probably filled him in, it looked like they might have sketched over some key details. "You did. Well, technically, for a few minutes. But luckily for us they were able to revive you."

Jesse's eyes slid his way briefly, eyebrows rising as he said, "Really? Ah..." as if that explained something he'd been puzzling over. "Something happened... while I was unconscious. I... I thought I saw someone... It was a long way from here, so far I didn't think there was a way back for me. It seemed like I was there forever, searching, looking for..." The sentence went unfinished, the pause punctuated with a heavy sigh. "She sent me away, though, told me I couldn't go with her, that I belonged somewhere else, and I thought I was getting exactly what I deserved. But then I woke up here, so..." He tailed off, staring blindly ahead, obviously lost in whatever he was seeing behind the unfocussed blue of his gaze.

Unwilling to let him leave it there when he'd come so far, Adam gave him a few moments before prompting gently, "What did you find out there, Jesse?"

The younger man shook himself out of his reverie and tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling as he thought about the question, eventually offering, "Hope? Acceptance? Forgiveness? I don't know." He shrugged. "It wasn't real anyway, so I guess it could have been anything I chose."

"It was as real as you want it to be. As you need it to be."

"Maybe." But the word echoed with uncertainty.

"Was it enough, though?" The big question, Adam thought, holding his breath through the long seconds that followed until the answer came.

"I... I think so. I hope so..." And this time there seemed to be a little more conviction behind the words.

Adam smiled warmly at his companion, reaching a hand to squeeze his arm in encouragement. "I hope so, too. But remember, whatever you decide, whatever you feel you need to do, you don't have to do it alone. There'll always be a place for you here. This will always be your home."

It was Jesse's turn to say, "I know. And thank you," he added as he climbed stiffly to his feet, his firm gaze catching and holding the dark eyes looking up at him to reinforce the words. "I think I'll head back to my room now." He declined the offer of assistance with typical independence, moving slowly away. At the corner, though, he paused and turned back.

"You know, whatever else I've learned, one thing's for certain - being bullet-proof is far preferable to the alternative." And with a broad, if somewhat wry, grin he was gone.

OK, so not quite the belly laugh Adam would have liked, but he'd have to put it down as a step in the right direction.

And high above them Shalimar wiped a hand under her eyes, dispatching the traitorous dampness that had somehow materialised there, and smiled to herself as she padded away towards her room.

-o- 

TBC


	11. Eleven End

**Eleven **

  
"Do you really think we should be taking him along?" Brennan's voice, although lowered in partial deference to the feelings of the subject of his question, still clearly conveyed his doubts to those nearby.

Shalimar looked up from the monitor where she was making some final checks for the mission they were about to go out on, and frowned. "Why not?

"Why not? Shal, have you forgotten what happened the last time we were all on a job together? You nearly got wasted!"

"That was then. Things are different now."

"You think? He may be physically fit enough, but mentally? I'm not sure he's ready."

"He's ready."

"What makes you so certain? I mean, what if he goes all 'no powers' on us again? It wasn't that long ago that he chose to take a bullet rather than mass - doesn't that seem at all screwed up to you?"

"But his first instinct was to protect that boy," she protested. "And he did. That's enough for me."

"Oh, come on! He just got lucky. The slug could have gone straight through him and taken the kid out too. What's to say that couldn't happen with one of us if he loses his nerve, can't do the right thing when he needs to, not even to save himself."

"It's not going to happen," she said firmly, her expression telling him clearly this one wasn't open for discussion. He couldn't let it go, though, without a parting shot.

"I'd have thought you'd have learnt by now that blind faith is no substitute for cold hard proof."

She advanced on him to stand with hands on hips, glaring up at him. "You know so much? OK, so go find out for yourself. Try him!"

"I might just do that..."

Alone at the hanger's computer terminal, Jesse finished the remote checks he was running on the Helix's systems and paused for a few moments to do the same for himself. His injury had healed well, and he'd come through his last simulated combat session with no ill effects, aside from a few expected bruises. Of course, simulations weren't the same as real life, a problem he'd struggled with on and off over the years - hard to take them seriously, or see the outcome as truly meaningful, and he knew he really needed to test himself in a proper life or death situation to be sure all was well. Which was probably what accounted for the fluttering in his stomach at the prospect of what lay ahead of them today.

He pushed himself away from the workbench and turned towards the plane, opening his mouth to ask the others what was keeping them. He didn't get that far, though. From behind him somewhere came a quiet, "Hey," followed immediately by the familiar 'phtt' and sizzle of a tesla coil in the making. 

Although rationally he knew who it had to be, he was already instinctively exhaling as he turned to face the source of the potential threat - and luckily so. The twin bolts of lightning zapping his way passed harmlessly through his phased form and impacted with less force than he'd expected against the wall behind him. A warning shot, then, not the full power variety, but that didn't stop the indignation rising through him in a raging flood.

"What the hell was that for?" he demanded of the bulky shadow standing in the hanger doorway, not quite obscuring the two grinning figures lurking behind him.

"Just giving you a pre-mission shakedown," Brennan answered blithely, ambling across the room towards him. As he drew near he raised a hand with palm out, inviting a responding high five from the Jesse that, after a fleeting hesitation, he got. "Welcome back, bro. Wanted to be sure you were firing on all cylinders again before we hit the big time out there, but looks like everything's working just fine."

For just a moment he thought the molecular was going to lay into him, but he was relieved to see the anger drain from the taut body and the lips twist into a self-deprecating grin. "Yeah, I guess it is."

"Way to go, man," the big man grinned back. "So... let's get this show on the road, then!" Patting his team mate on the shoulder, he moved off towards the plane as the two women who'd been hanging back watching came fully into the room.

"Knew you'd have it covered," Shalimar murmured as she passed Jesse, her fingers wrapping round his for a few seconds in a warm affectionate grasp. And Emma, following on behind, just smiled her secret smile, but he could feel the waves of approval and support she was projecting.

He stood and watched them disappear on board, expression strangely neutral, until Shalimar popped her head out of the hatch to ask quizzically, "You with us, Jess? Any problems?"

There was only the barest delay, almost unnoticeable, before he smiled back. "No, I'm with you."

With a nod of relieved acceptance she was gone again, leaving only the empty hanger to hear him add softly, "Like I never left," as he went to join her and the rest of his team.

  
THE END  



End file.
